My sister is dying. 

My best friend. My mentor. My right brain and held hand.

If you look at her life from the outside, you might say she was due for something tragic. She’s beautiful, intelligent, went to good schools, never worried about food on the table, worked her tail off for a successful career, and created a life with a giving husband and two beautiful boys.

Maybe she deserved some gut-checking.

Something to knock us all back to reality. Something to remind us that you really can’t have everything. 

Maybe that hysterectomy, which when this all started, felt like the biggest, scariest, and saddest thing that could ever happen. Her youngest was only seven months old when they thought she needed a hysterectomy, and we all held our breath with the scary thought that this maternal creature wouldn’t birth again. 

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That fear was so short-lived, though. We’d all happily trade our uteruses if it meant she’d be able to actually see her two existing children grow up. Maybe that hysterectomy would have been enough to make us all grateful and appreciate our blessings.

But instead, she’s dying.

She still has her uterus but the tumors surrounding it and the chemo they’ve blasted it with have made it useless. Besides, you can’t bear children from the grave. 

Maybe a terrifying accident. Maybe someone would have been texting and run into her. It would have been horrifying, those moments of chaos and uncertainty. What if she was bedridden with a broken femur or maybe minor brain damage? She would think of her children and feel guilty for the burden this would add to their daily lives. 

Now we would welcome those hardships. The kids would watch her striving hard and would always be careful behind the wheel, the memory never far from their minds. Maybe they would see her with lingering anxiety due to the very real fear of what could have been worse.

Still, she would be there to be seen by them. 

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These terrifying and life-altering events would be so hard. They are so hard, for so many, and I’m not guaranteed to be spared them myself. But I can’t think of anything else other than the fact that my sister is dying. She and her uterus. Her unbroken bones. Her family unit, currently intact, will soon be torn to shreds. 

My sister is dying. 

I’m so scared. Maybe if I say it again it won’t sound so incredibly unfathomable.

My sister is dying. 

Nope. Still there.

Can I give her my uterus? Can my children understand the role she was to play in their lives? How sad will I be at every one of their milestones because I can’t share my pride with her? Will they love their cousins as brothers, as I will love them as sons How can we have hope when it’s hopeless?

How am I supposed to live when my sister is dying?