My next series of questions focus on Erik’s big sister, Kristina, who is currently finishing up her second year in medical school. She’s had little or no time to stop and catch her breath since his death, much less go through the full grieving process. His suicide came as such a violent shock to all of us, including her, but she, alone, is caught in the riptide of a merciless medical school curriculum, swept along with no line, no ring buoy, no life raft to rescue and ferry her to a quiet place of respite. As her mother, I am consumed with worry.

‘Erik, I’m getting a lot of sadness from Kristina. She’s really stressed out. I get the feeling she’s wondering if she should even continue in medical school. She’s having such a hard time,’ I say.

“She must continue. She MUST! With “must” spelled in capital letters and underlined,” Erik insists emphatically.

‘Well what’s going on?’ I ask.

“Look, my death took the wind out of her sails. She’s in shock, but doesn’t have time to deal with it. Plus, this is theory. This is theory. She’s going to get excited about the practice. Theory always bore the shit out of her. It’s like she’s in the last quarter mile of a 26-mile marathon. The theory was expected to be freaking boring for her. This shouldn’t be a surprise. But she has to finish cuz it’s a means to an end. There will be an end, a successful conclusion.”

“Has she thought of psychiatry?” Kim asks me.

‘Yes, before she went into medical school, but then she figured it’d be pretty boring,” I explain.

“Well now, after his passing, Erik says she might give it another look see.”

‘Okay, I’ll let her know,’ I promise. ‘Do you think therapy will help her, Erik?’

“No because what’s gonna happen is she’s going to finish this part of medical school, then she’s going to have a little bit of time to heal. It’ll be like BOOM as if she’s hit bottom emotionally, because then she’ll have time to focus on the healing she needs to do over me dying. That’s ready, it’s waiting for her. Kristina’s not going to stuff anything. She’s going to be able to heal on her own. You’re going to need to channel for her, though, Mom.”

‘Oh, okay,’ I say, wondering how I’m going to be able to do that. Don’t know how. Don’t know where to start.

“She’s going to be pissed, really pissed at me, like ‘why would you do that? Why would you just give up? Why would you do that?’ Because she knows so well about not giving up, keeping at it, and how hard it is but you trudge through it anyway. She’s going to be very angry at me almost like a mother with a son, like ‘How could you do that to us? Why did you…’ So you’re going to be channeling me for her, and she’s going to handle this great. Ooh, is she going to be pissed, and she’s going to have tears, and she’s going to have days and days where she’s just so upset and negative, but she’s going to work through it. She’s going to do a great job,” he says with confidence.

‘Good, so when is she going to feel better about her future in the world of Medicine?’ I ask him.

“When she gets over this theory part. But she’ll feel better about her life in general when she gets over this mourning part. It doesn’t mean she won’t always miss me, but there’s this huge well of sadness and grief and anger and confusion and frustration that she’s going to work through just great. That’s another reason she’s going to think about psychiatry because she’s gonna want to help other people do that. Not everyone has her strength to do this work on their own, the willingness, the ability.”

Kim interjects with: “I see Erik showing himself kneeling and holding out a pretty bouquet of flowers out in front of him. Tears are streaming from his eyes. Erik, who are these for? Oh, okay. he‘s telling me thery’re for his big sister. He wants to say he’s so sorry for hurting her, and he hopes she will forgive him, and he thinks she will. He’s saying ‘I don’t want her to be pissed at me,’ and he wants to tell her he loves her very much.”

Tears well up in my own eyes and, choking on my words, I say, ‘She loves you too, Baby. We all do.’

Death destroys so much. It rips apart faith. It devastates futures. It annihilates joy. It distorts past memories. It enfeebles our sense of security. It robs us of all happiness, at least for a while. What it fails to do, however, is break the bonds of love. Those are the bonds that survive all.