As published in VoiceCatcher.

I have entered the season of grief. At age 64, I like to think of myself as “middle-aged,” but unless I live to 128, my middle years have long departed. I now know more dead people than newborn ones. Loss has become a way of life. Every month, someone new dies—an old friend, a neighbor, someone’s husband or wife. They are dropping like flies around me.

I used to wear my grief like a heavy winter coat, weighted, scratchy, and impossible to ignore. Now it feels more like a spring sweater. I am aware of its light weight, but it doesn’t oppress me. I wrap the soft cotton threads around my shoulders and go about my day, feeling grateful for its presence. It’s not the grief I hold on to now, it’s the memories.

I got slammed with grief when my sister died. She was struck and killed by a bicycle on her way to meet me for dinner. She was just a year older than I am now. She was my mentor and my best friend. My loss crushed me. It was everything. My loss became my only story. If you asked me how I was doing (and lots of people did), I’d respond honestly. “Terrible,” I’d say. I dealt with my sadness by embracing it and talking about it. People hated seeing me sad, but I relished the relief of speaking my truth.

Strangely, though, my ninety-five-year-old mother didn’t want to talk about her feelings. She’d talk about my sister, sure, but not about her death. Psychologists say it’s important to share our feelings about grief in order to fully process them. I tried to help my mother in that process. I even sent a grief counselor to see her. I remember meeting him in the hall of her retirement building after two sessions. “Your mother is a strong woman,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “We had a good couple of sessions, but she doesn’t want to meet with me anymore. She says she’s over it.” Over it? Right. She’s over the loss of her dearest daughter, the one who took care of her after my father died, who moved her out of the family home and into an apartment ten minutes away from her? The one who saw her every Sunday, took her out shopping and to all her appointments? The one she leaned on most? Obviously my mother wasn’t over the loss of my sister. She just didn’t want to talk about it. She wore her grief lightly and enjoyed everything else she had in her life—her three other children, her grandchildren, her one great-granddaughter, and her few remaining friends. She even made new friends.

My mother herself died just one year after my sister. I handled this loss differently. In our family, we used to say to each other, “Well, if mom ever dies” instead of “When mom dies.” It’s as if we couldn’t fathom the idea of our indomitable mother actually dying. Our mother was our rock, always available to talk on the phone (sometimes too available), give advice (sometimes too readily), lend money (never too often), and generally cheer us on. We rued the day we’d lose her. But when that day actually arrived, we were ready. Her heart was failing as was her cognition; she wanted to die, and we supported her in that wish. Standing by her deathbed, we’d watch her close her eyes, scrunch up her face, and try to wish herself out of this world. She’d then open them, see our hangdog faces staring at her from above, and sigh in disappointment. “Sorry, Ma,” I’d say, “I don’t think it works that way. You can’t rush it.” But still she’d try, again and again, until she passed. It was almost a relief when she stopped breathing.

It seems like every month someone I know dies. Just the other day I got the news that an acquaintance younger than I had died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. He had just retired, put all his furniture in storage, and was readying to travel the world with his wife. Now his wife is left with no home and no husband. I called my sister to tell her about it. “Oh God,” she said, “That’s what I’m especially worried about. Pulmonary embolisms.”

“Why?” I answered. “Do you think you have one? What exactly is a pulmonary embolism?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I asked my doctor how you screen for one, and he seemed perplexed by the question. But people seem to die from them a lot. There must be a way to avoid them!”

I agreed, but I still don’t know the answer to that question. People die of so many things. There’s just no way to prevent it. I see signs of aging in my own body. It’s a grim reality that I am struggling to accept. I have a double chin that looks like a fat turkey’s wattle. My formerly perky nipples are beginning to point south. I’ve gained ten pounds in the past few years, and no amount of diet restriction can take them off. I struggle between the idea of plastic surgery and embracing oneself as is. Which route to take?

My mother chose the latter. She embraced herself as she was and everything else around her too. I think I finally understand how she survived the death of her closest daughter. In the last year of her life, she moved across the country to live near me, welcomed visits from each one of her nine grandchildren, took a road trip over a mountain, traversed piles of snow in her walker to eat at a mountain diner, karaoked with me at downtown club, joined a reading group, and accepted pretty much every invitation she received. She tucked my sister in her heart—along with my father, and her parents, brother, and sister—and got on with life. Until she died herself.

When people die, we don’t see them anymore. Their bodies are cremated or buried. But their essence remains with us. A year after my sister died, I had a dream in which she leaned into me and whispered, almost conspiratorially, “You know, Jule, no one here actually wants to be there again.” I was so shocked by her words, I woke up with a start. I never had that thought before. I assumed dead people would always wish to be alive. But maybe not. This dream also made me realize my sister could still reach out to me. She was dead and gone but still showing up in my thoughts, feelings, and dreams, so not really dead at all. Physically, yes. Emotionally, no.

Now, like my mother, I no longer fear death for myself or anyone else. I’ve realized the importance of gaining as much knowledge of the people you love while you can so that when they die, you can keep them close. When they die, you can throw on that light sweater of grief and snuggle up. Feel the warmth of the memories, the softness of the shared experiences. Unbutton the top buttons and turn your face to the sun. Your people are always with you.