Guest Post by Nancy Prom-Pierson

“You should probably come home.”

               Those words, spoken by my sister Sandi, reflected a sort of pact we had when my dad started getting ill, and given that I live 10 hours away from my home town, I made her promise that she would be honest with me when it seemed as though his time was running short. In May, 2020, she did just that. I went home to spend my last days with Dad. This was something I knew would happen some day, but I still wasn’t prepared.

And so, nearly five years from that call about Dad, Sandi made another similar call. This time it was about our older sister, Kristi. Again–I was expecting it, to a degree, but it was different this time. I was losing my sister. One of my first friends. This was a whole different set of emotions that I was not prepared to process.

For the previous nine years, Kristi had been dealing with primary idiopathic pulmonary hypertension. Essentially, her lungs were failing, and there was no reason why. She never smoked nor vaped. In fact, other than her lung problems, she was in perfect health. How’s that for cruel irony? She had endured two lung transplants–and all of the highs and lows that come with being on a transplant list–but her high antibodies kept rejecting her new lungs. So, when her second set of lungs started to fail, she declared that she would not–could not–go through a third round of lung transplant surgery. From the medical lens, it was unlikely she would have been given a third transplant opportunity, but Kristi wasn’t about to try. She was spent.

               So I went home to North Dakota in April to say my goodbyes. It was an awful weekend. We both knew why I was there, yet we wouldn’t say it. We just spent time together looking at pictures, reliving old memories, and laughing. At this point, Kristi’s oxygen was so low that she could barely speak, and she coughed quite a bit, but we still engaged. And then came our last moments together. I asked the rest of the family if they could leave the room because this was what I believed was going to be my last moment on earth with this person I had known for 57 years. We talked. We cried. We said everything that needed to be said. And then I had to come back to Iowa. About 3 weeks later, Sandi face-timed from the hospital so I could say goodbye to Kristi. Eight hours later, Sandi called again to say that Kristi had died. She took her last breath in the same hospital where 61 years and 5 days prior she had taken her first breath.

               It has been about nine months since she died, and I find myself stuck in a vortex of grief. I wear some of her scarves and jewelry, and I am warmed by her memory, but I still struggle to wrap my mind around the fact that she’s gone. I don’t know how many times I think, “I should call Kristi and tell her…” She was a big John Travolta fan, and when his latest commercial came on TV, my first thought was, “I wonder if Kristi has seen it.” It’s odd that I actually struggle to remember this momentous, terrible event. It’s a paradox, really–this event that was one of the worst of my life is something I have to remind myself actually happened.

           I have recently found my grief for Kristi’s death manifesting itself in avoidance. Every ten years, the community in which I grew up has an all-school reunion. It’s typically a great time–with scores of people descending on our small town–to remember the good old days and catch up on the details that Social Media doesn’t capture. Yet this year, I find myself not sure if I even want to attend. The one person who lived for these reunions, who had so much fun at them, who was the person everyone wanted to make sure they’d see when they came home, was Kristi. Going to this reunion feels empty to me, and I’m not sure if it’s where I want to be. I’ve never been one to avoid situations, but I find that to be my reality this time around. In my heart, I know I will go–as sort of an homage to Kristi. She would be the first one to call me out for skipping the reunion for such a reason. She loved a party, but she hated a pity party.

               My journey through Kristi’s illness and death has been a learning experience. I am learning to navigate the question, “How many siblings do you have?” I’m learning how to resist the urge to call Kristi. I am learning that life is sometimes simply unfair. But I am also learning to smile and laugh again because in remembering Kristi, I honor the life and strength of this person who I was fortunate enough to have in my life for nearly six decades. Rest in peace, Kristi.

The four Prom kids–the last time we were all together.

How I still see us.