On that note, I was recently thinking about the line "You complete me" from the movie Jerry Maguire. Even seeing it (with Yael) in our 20s, I found that line ridiculous, thinking even then that no partner or lover would ever make me "complete." My siblings completed me. I believed that from a young age. Much as I adored my late husband Jason and the huge role he played in making my life fuller, he did not make me "complete."
My siblings made me complete. And, without both of them, I am simply... incomplete. Like a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece. I am incomplete and I will be until my last day.
That leads me to a podcast I relate to hugely: Last Day, created by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, who lost her beloved younger brother and only sibling. Her wonderful podcast delves deeply into the painful subjects of addiction, mental illness and suicide. In a recent episode, she said of herself and her parents, "We used to measure time in weeks and months and years. Now, there were two categories: before he died and after. And everything that came before suddenly felt futile."
This resonates with me every single day of my life since November 22, 2014. The before and after is stark, drastic and profound. I look at photos of Yael and my parents and I from before Amir died and we look like different people, people untouched by the immeasurable pain and relentless grief that would mark the rest of our lives after that unimaginable November day six years ago. I miss those people and those full lives more than I can possibly express.
