Remembering

Disneyland was excellent as always, except it wasn't worth dealing with the awful crowd yesterday. I guess because it's winter break and kids are out of school and adults are off work (some of them who are lucky enough to have a holiday vacation), everyone in the universe thought it would be a good idea to go to disneyland yesterday. The worst is when it's super crowded and youre walking in this mass of people and some guy stops right in front of you for no apparent reason and you crash into him and everyone behind you crashes into you...it's a mess. I think I won't go back until after the holidays, unless friends want to go before then.

So I found out something interesting (at least to me) the other day that I never knew. Every time I asked my mom why I was named Sarah, she said that my dad picked out the name because he liked it and no other reason. I was talking to my dad and he said that I was actually named by my mom after her good friend Sarah in colorado who was a fellow SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) parent and had been a huge support to my mom after Andrea died. Why didn't she just tell me that in the first place? That conversation made me start thinking about Andrea a bunch. Yeah, it's hard to lose a sister, but I can't even imagine how hard it is to lose a child who you've cared for for a year and a half. That must have killed my parents, but they never really talk about it, so it was surprising when my dad gave me this newsletter and showed me a story that was written by the daughter of my mom's friend Sarah who is my age and whose brother also died of SIDS. Here's what she had to say, which is exactly how I feel too so I thought it might be interested to post.

"For me, I think the hardest thing about Luke's death, the thing that was the most important to me was just that I knew about my brother. People often thought we were weird because at a very young age I not only knew what death was but talked about it with my parents. Despite the fact that many people think death is too awful for kids to handle, for me it was never scary or morbid--it just was...I just always knew that Id had a brother and that now he was gone.

Even though I'd never met Luke I still felt a very strong connection to him and felt that he was no less a part of our family just because he was dead. I was always furious anytime my mom would introduce me as her only child, stubbornly insisting (often in front of people Id just met), 'I have a brother...he's just not alive anymore'. Over time I came to realize, as my mom had, that it was simply easier not to bring Luke up with people we were never going to see again...but I certainly still think of him anytime anyone ask me if I'm an only child. We also remember Luke as a family. Every year on August 8th, we have dinner together and go out to Dairy Queen to get ice cream and celebrate his birthday...And we go together to the cemetery on December 8th to put flowers by his grave and mourn his death. When I think of Luke, especially on those two hardest days, I wonder what it would have been like to have an older brother, someone to watch over me as i grew up, and beat up all the guys who treated me poorly.

One of the hardest things to me about losing my brother was that he was gone before I got a chance to know him, before we all got to see how he would turn out. Even as I write this, I wonder if I would have been close to him...if he would be quiet and reserved like our parents or loud and unruly like myself...would he have played sports, done well in school, etc.

Although I never knew him and he's been gone for 21 years, I still think about him all the time...and he is still my brother."


Andrea would be 21 years old on Jan 31st. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't dwell and try to completely forget, and as it is I don't think about it all that much (just when something triggers it), but I think it's important that someone remember. That I remember. Even if nothing can change and things are as they are and I'm ok with that. But now my name will be a reminder that at least there are people out there who provided my parents with support when I couldnt even begin to talk to them about it and still can't. I posted also to spread a little awareness that SIDS is out there, people have to deal with it all over the place, and I don't think a lot of people even know what it is.