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“Wenn Du bei Nacht den Himmel anschaust, wird es dir sein,

als lachten alle Sterne, weil ich auf einem von ihnen wohne,

weil ich auf einem von ihnen lache.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – “Der Kleine Prinz”

“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night .”

I know I just announced my blog to be a healthy lifestyle/fitness blog, and this post may not fit the bill to 100%. But this is a post I’ve been thinking about for the last year or so, and not writing about it feels a little like I’m hiding a big part of me. It also plays a big part in why I stopped blogging a while back, so let me explain.

The quote above is what  we used for my sister’s death announcement (in Germany, it is common to put an “announcement” in the newspaper, a little like an ad you can place.) It is from a french children’s book called “The Little Prince”, which I highly recommend for every adult to read, since it actually transmits some great life lessons. My mom used this story to explain death and say Goodbye to me when I was eight. I didn’t realize that until I re-read the book as an adult, and after so many years it helped me to come somewhat to terms with my mother’s death. Until my sister was taken from me late August 2012.

I will not ever forget that morning, that day, that year. My brother called me early that morning. I was still sleeping, and didn’t pick up the first two times he called. Now, all my family is in Germany and they generally don’t call me unannounced, and not at that time of day, and not three times in a row. I got that weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, where it’s hard to swallow and your stomach feels like it’s twisting itself into a knot. I answered my phone, and there was no “Hi, it’s me, how are you?”, there only was a

“Is K with you?” (K referring to my husband)

“Are you sitting down? I have bad news. You better sit down.

Your sister passed away.”

Tears on the other end, me asking

“What? What?”

“Your sister died this morning. S is gone.”

Silence.

Then my whole world broke apart. Again.

My sister S was my world. She was my everything. We went through so much together, she was always there for me. As the older one, she felt the need to take care of me. She always said “We aren’t just sisters. We are soul mates.” And it was true. It is true. There is no day going by on which I’m not thinking about her. Not one day I’m not missing her. And yet, I’m having a hard time to talk about it, or even write about it in my personal diary. I’m not sure what I’m trying to do with this post on here, I just know I need to get it off my chest. I feel the need to just put it out there. But at the same time I’m realizing, while trying to write this, that I’m not ready. It’s been over a year, but I’m not ready. I don’t want to let her go.

It isn’t always easy to cope and work with what life gives you, but I’m trying to remember that it’s my choice how to handle it, even if it doesn’t seem like it. And yes, there’ll be many more hard days to come, days on which I won’t be able to focus on anything else, followed by sleepless nights that won’t want to end, but it’ll get better. That I believe in.

This post is being published as part of the Zero to Hero: 30 Day Challenge