Today should’ve been my sister’s 55th birthday.

It could’ve been her 55th birthday if she hadn’t died.

It would've been her 55th birthday.

The holy trinity of regret.

Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda.

Those words ring through my head whenever I think of her, which, nearly 20 years after her passing, is daily. They are the words of regret. The things you should’ve said or done. The things you could’ve done if it had been the right time/you had the right amount of money/knew the right people. The things you would’ve done if you…

The list of things could be endless if you let it.

They say grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Those stages were never intended for us, but for the person who was dying. It was to help terminally ill people reckon with the fact that they were in their last days. In time, the stages were used by the ones that person left behind, the ones who would have to live with the grief.

When my mother died, I said that death comes to visit, but grief comes to live with you. In the days that followed her death, I experienced the same familiar blur that comes with planning a funeral. The familiarity that I felt was because I had already taken those steps, cried those tears, and made those choices. I had been living with grief for well over a decade by that point; Death was just simply stopping by to claim another part of my life.

It was Grief that sat on my bed waiting for the tears to stop, ever patient, ever ready.
It was Grief that I denied the existence of. It was Grief that I got angry at, and it was the one that had me bargaining with a God I had stopped believing in a long time ago to give me more time. So that I could say the things I hadn’t, done the things I would’ve done, but differently.

Because in those horrible final moments I had thought, “it should’ve been me.”

As a child, I was the frail one. Prone to injury, illness, and mysterious hives brought on by the many many many things I was (and am) allergic to. The source of my survivor’s guilt was based on the knowledge that if you had put our stats up on the board, you’d see that it "should've" been me. The depression that followed lifted long enough to accept Grief into my life. I invited Grief to sit with me as I prepared my sister for her funeral, carefully applying her makeup and styling her hair because I knew no mortician would’ve gotten the swoop of her bangs right or lined her lips the way she always did. This was something I could do for her. Two hours passed before I was satisfied that I had done a look she would’ve been happy with. In those two hours, I played her favourite artist of all time: Prince.

My sister was THE Prince stan. People who met me after she died assumed it was me based on the amount of music I owned, the merch, and the in-depth knowledge of his life and career. Those who knew better knew it’s because I lived with my sister.
When you share a room and half of that room is basically a shrine, you have no choice but to learn. Sometimes it went a bit too far - like being 12 years old and having to wake up every morning to the sight of the Lovesexy album cover (for those who don’t know…he’s naked on it). But other times, it was a music history lesson and over time, I became a fan.

For two sisters who disagreed about EVERYTHING - politically, socially, morally - Prince was our common ground. When he came to Toronto on tour it was a given that she would buy the tickets so that I could go with her. For sisters who fought over EVERYTHING - food, board games, counter space in the bathroom - we never fought on those nights. We didn’t shop together, brunch together, or spend hours on the phone together the way some sisters did.

But when Prince announced a concert…we knew we were going with each other. Boyfriends weren’t invited. BFFs weren’t invited. This was for us.

My favourite memory was a show at a place called Koolhaus. Prince was going by the symbol at that time and it was the week of his birthday. The crowd struggled to sing “happy birthday" and we all went silent when it got to the name part. He looked up from tuning his guitar and laughed at us. When the show ended I bumped into a friend who snuck us into the after party.

As the sun came up, we headed home, dancing and skipping along the streets screaming at each other, “WE PARTIED WITH PRINCE!”

When she was hospitalized, the only comfort she asked for were CDs to listen to. No TV, no books. She wanted a variety of her favourites, which I took out of their jewel cases and placed in sleeves. She asked for Greatest Hits/B-Sides for efficiency. Those CDs still sit in their sleeves, I’ve never returned them to their cases.

After the funeral, I stopped listening to his music. If it played in a store, I’d walk out, Grief silently trailing behind me. Years later, I was gifted a front row seat to a show, and as much as I sang, danced, and cheered, there was a little voice whispering

“She should be here. She would’ve loved this……

I could’ve stayed home.”

When I got home, I sat on the floor inside the door and cried.

It should’ve been her.

I never saw him perform live again. Every time he announced a show, someone would ask, “why aren’t YOU going?”. Sometimes I would explain. More often I wouldn’t. Because people would say “she would want you to enjoy yourself…” and that’s not the hard part. The hard part is doing this thing that was once “our thing” by myself. Because no matter who may be with me, it will never be her, and it will never be us.

The day Prince died, I had so many people reach out. Those who knew me after my sister had died reached out because I was the biggest fan they knew (only because they didn't know her) and those who knew me before called because that was the last thing I had with her.

There was no her, and now there was no him. There was just me.

(and of course, Grief. Ever present. Ever ready.)

In time I realized I didn’t mourn Prince Rogers Nelson the man. I was sad that he died. But my mourning was for the moments I had because of him. Every song was a memory of her. I cannot create new memories around his songs, I’ve tried.

Eventually I realized I don’t want to. So now, I listen. Sometimes with a smile, sometimes with tears. But I have the memories of some of the best moments with my sister, and they just happen to come with a soundtrack written by the one and only Prince.

Happy Birthday Kristin…this song is my memory of you.

Should’ve. Would’ve. Could’ve.

in memoriam

a conversation about grief