Allison Mary

Had she lived, my sister would have been 59 today. She died in a car accident in 2004. I am the first of seven. She was the second, and so she was my littermate. Aside from my parents, the person I had known the longest. I had suffered losses in my life, including the deaths of family and of good friends, but I was unprepared for what it would be like to lose a sister, outside the cycle of nature. Such primal, volcanic pain. I did not think that a human being could howl like that. As I joined my brothers in carrying her coffin out of the church after the funeral Mass, with hundreds of people watching, --she had so many friends, including very close ones--I could hardly stand up; it seemed that I was being struck by lightning, over and over. I did not really know how physically painful grief was until she died. It hit me and tripped me up for years afterward, in ways I would never have suspected.

I have been oddly lucky in losses; not having to carry them alone. When my dad was dying, B was the best of companions all the way through. When my sister died, Thomas came over in the middle of the night and manfully stayed with me til it got light. And for the funeral, my great old friend Thom Landino and my godson Bob were literal supports for me. Grief is so intensely personal, but doing it all alone would be worse. And of course there was the rest of my family, including my parents. I sometimes felt that watching them cope with the death of a child --which they did with amazing grace and faith--was worse for me than losing her.

She was a big person, my little sister. (I never thought of her that way, actually.) Not physically, though she was voluptuous, sexy and beautiful. But whenever she was around, you knew it. She was the glue that held our family together and the matriarch-in-training. When a stranger at a party found that I was the oldest of seven, she said, "It must be interesting, being the alpha male." I laughed, "You haven't met my sister."

So when she died, we had to reconfigure ourselves. I found myself, who has lived far away from the family turf for thirty-five years, drawn in more closely to them. And my role has turned out to be something like a mediator, doing my best as the oldest and taking advantage of the fact that I am without my own family (hence, not drawn into the games of in-law-ship) and mostly 3000 miles distant.

She was full of life and energy. A New York lawyer and a terrific chef and an internet entrepreneur. She broke into a traditionally all-male St Patrick's gathering for lawyers by going in male drag. Lots of enthusiasms --from studying Chinese, to tap dancing, to sport fishing--, a world traveler, a great giver of parties and when it came to shopping, something of a hoarder. We used to joke that she had three of everything. Very clear opinions, including what was right for you. Always a man around, but none of them ever stayed; which left a sadness in her wonderful blue eyes. We still speak of her often; no shyness or avoidance of who she was or that she is gone. Whenever I am back with the family, every day I drive by the spot where she left this world. Who she was shaped my family, and her wholly unexpected dying left a gap we still try to deal with.

For a long time I could not have her picture up in my house. It was too painful. My brother made a CD of her life, with her favorite songs. To this day I have never been able to open it; even thinking about it gives me that pre-panicky feeling in my chest. But for her summer parties, she always decorated the picnic tables in the same way: big bouquets of multi-colored gladiolas set in a galvanized steel can. I have had one in my living room for her for the last six years.

When my other sisters cleaned out her house, they found her old baseball mitt and gave it to me. She had a big dose of masculine energy inside her very noticeably female frame. The last couple of years, I had the chance to sorta fit my hand in it and play catch. An unexpected grace. I know that whenever I got to play, Allison laughed.