That fall, in the same place where she had hugged me goodbye, her two brothers, her father, and I went out for a sail. At the end of the burial, a single white balloon was released into the air. Words were spoken, songs sung, and tears shed. Two days later, there was a private family burial on a warm and sunny summer afternoon. Her condition was worse than it had ever been: tumors riddled her legs, arms, hips, and lungs. She couldn’t walk, and she could barely hold up her head. My boyfriend went home for most of August. She had never before initiated any sort of physical contact - her body seemed too delicate for such things - let alone something as intimate as a hug.īy mid-summer, she had returned from Switzerland, but she wasn’t getting any better. I wondered from the force of the embrace if it would be the last time I would see her. She gave me a good, strong hug before she left for Europe. She seemed energized by the prospect of the trip. She was off to Switzerland, where she would undergo another round of treatments. The next morning though, she seemed to have rallied, cheerily eating a buttery croissant and drinking some coffee at the kitchen counter. ![]() She was back on a couch underneath a blanket for the fourth of July. That night, she was barely able to eat more than one truffle oil tater tot at the restaurant. A month later, she was noticeably thinner, more exhausted, and walking with a cane. We bantered for a bit and then left so she could rest. She was propped up on a couch with cozy pillows, bundled up, and meekly sipping on a thin berry juice her mother had prepared for her. When we saw her briefly at her home in May, she seemed a bit more sedated. He seemed disappointed that they left without saying goodbye. A smattering of coins that had previously coated his apartment floor had been collected into a tall, cylindrical box that nice Scotch bottles come in. On Sunday, they left town, but not before meticulously cleaning my boyfriend’s apartment - floors swept, bathroom sanitized. Her friend and I did most of the talking while my boyfriend’s sister spent much of the time coughing. We sat down for a snack at the cafe in the large space that overlooks the park, where young kids were sledding down a small hill. The following day, we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - walking around the Impressionist wing and the Temple of Dendur. ‘ Her decline and her death were woven into our courtship.’ At one point, I remember us joking about her brother being able to recite all of David Attenborough’s narration of the BBC’s “Birds of Paradise” documentary. I first met her on a Friday evening at a small and informal dinner gathering their cousin was hosting. In the new year, his sister came to New York with a friend during a brutal cold front. READ: Ten Months After My Sister’s Death, What I Still Can’t Do ![]() When he came back, our relationship moved unbelievably fast - probably faster than either of us were prepared for. He was away with his sister and family for almost three weeks. We were practically raised around the corner from each other from the time we were 14. I listened as he spoke on the drive home, back to the town where both of our families live. It had started in her liver but ultimately traveled throughout her body - into her lungs and brain. ![]() Her cancer had three severe sounding medical names, each more difficult to pronounce than the last. We had only been on one date just two days earlier. He mentioned this as he was driving back home for Christmas. Most people who had the same kind of cancer died within a year of its diagnosis, but she had been fighting it for four years. His sister had cancer - a rare, incurable kind that she was diagnosed with in her early twenties. It was one of the first things he told me when we started dating.
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