Navigating Life Following the Loss of My Older Sister

My elder sister and I were both named after our grandmothers. She, Rebecca, and me, Kathryn. Becky and Katie. After that, our parents ran out of grandmothers, so they had to be more inventive naming our two younger sisters. I always cherished this part of myself, the name that goes back and back, linking to the many women who bore it. Mothers, daughters.

My sister Becky passed away on May 14th, 2018. She was ill for a long three years with aggressive cervical cancer, and my life split: there is my first life, the person I was before Becky became ill, and there is my second life, the person I am after she passed. Those three years of her being ill reside in their own pause, a shocking horror movie, where she dies and the rest of us continue but die in our own ways. Anyone who has lost someone dear to cancer knows this feeling. Anyone who has had to watch powerlessly as hope fades recognizes this. A vision of a skin and bones figure in a bed who could not be my sister but was my sister, and then nothing, eternally gone. It hurts now as intensely as it ever did when I allow myself to think of it for more than a moment.

I was a new individual in several ways after my sister died, but most significantly, I became a mother a year later. My baby was due in June, but my water broke in the middle of the night a few weeks early. It was Mother’s Day. On the way to the hospital, in the dark, I prayed to Becky. I pleaded please, not May 14th, the same day she passed. I cannot bear to place the weight of all that grief on a tiny baby. But our little girl arrived quickly, a mercifully short delivery. It was May 13, 2019. I held my precious baby girl in my arms, and I wept for both joy and sadness.

Love is the most powerful force in our lives, it is our greatest joy and it is what pains us the most. Becoming a mother under the shadow of my greatest sorrow taught me much. It showed me the strength that I possessed. It showed me that grief has no endpoint; rather it is something that occupies a space in your life and accompanies you day by day. It taught me that grief, although we fear it, is neither good nor bad, and you can reconcile with it in your way. You coexist with it, because it exists, and because you must go on. So, you move forward together.

I had my baby girl, and then another baby boy soon afterward. By then, it had been a few years since Becky had passed. Each night, my husband and I took turns lying down with the kids to get them to sleep. They never adapted to being left in the crib to lull themselves to sleep; you had to stay with them. We didn’t mind. This would last maybe an hour of being still, there in the dark beside a tiny child, listening to them breathe softly, waiting for the moment you could quietly leave the room. You know the pattern of the sound they make that signals they are deeply asleep. A sleeping baby sometimes emits a soft melodic sigh.

Hummmm.
Hummmm.

My babies were so lovely, that I sometimes felt overwhelmed with love for them. My heart would ache for them, even though they were right there in front of me. Being a parent can feel like that. In those quiet evening hours, my mind turned to a story — to Rebecca. I composed my children’s book line by line in my mind like this, polishing it like a precious stone. I needed to express in words everything I felt; I had to write the grief out of myself because I needed to understand how to live with it.

Yet, I could not write about Becky directly. I think you can tell even from reading this essay that my sister’s death remains an open sore. Instead, I was drawn to the name itself. Rebecca, a name passed down here and there, until reaching as far back as the 18th century, where you meet the Rebecca of this book. Her name was Rebecca Lombard Smith, and she was our great-great-great-great-grandmother.

Rebecca was expecting her last child when her husband David perished on the ice by Port Hood Island in March 1789. Most stories recounting this history concentrate on the father, David — Captain David Smith, a whaling captain. The tragedy of his demise is the focal point of the story, that he should meet his end in such a calamitous manner. But to me, it is Rebecca who stands out. It is Rebecca who lives on and raises the children, on a small island off the shore of Cape Breton, all alone. There are numerous lines of descendants from this family of six sons and one daughter, but mine descends from the daughter. It is the mother’s name that continued in my family. It is the mother’s strength I witnessed in my sister when she battled to live with everything she had in her. It is the strength I found within myself when I had to.

When Becky was ill, I resided in a house in the village of Port Hood. I could view Port Hood Island out the window. It was lonely out there among the waves, particularly in winter, as no one resides there full time anymore. I stayed in Port Hood after Becky passed, when I became a mother. I used to gaze at that island and consider Rebecca. Her children survived, every one of them. My sister’s narrative ends with loss, but Rebecca’s concluded with hope, despite all the loss she endured. I could write that.

I used to carry the baby with me and take the dog, and we would walk as far as I could before my back started straining (baby carriers never suited me well). It turned out that “as far as I could” was about as far as a place called the Old Protestant Graveyard and back. This is where Rebecca Lombard Smith rests.

This is the inscription on her stone:

Here lies the remains of Rebecca Smith who was
born in Truro NEW ENGLAND with her husband
CAPTAIN DAVID SMITH who was lost on the ice
back on Port Hood in the year 1789. Who died on the
30th November A.D. 1821 in the 76th year of her age.
This stone was erected to her memory by her sons
Lewis
Parker
David

I recall thinking Wow, 76, she lived a long life… She lived a lifetime longer than her husband… I wonder if it was unusual that her sons inscribed their names here, too?… Looking around, I didn’t notice any other stone with that sort of personal touch. I lack an answer for why they did it, I never will. But to me, it seemed to declare, “This is our mother. We loved her.”

Sometimes we ache so much with grief and love that we need to put it into words. I felt connected to these people who lived and died centuries ago. I perceived my bond to them as something genuine. Then I would turn around and walk home, with the dog trotting by my side and the baby secured to my chest, asleep. The little sound keeping time with my steps forward.

Hummmm.
Hummmm.

Kate Beaton was born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, where she still lives with her family. She began creating webcomics under the name Hark! A Vagrant and quickly gained a large following. Her books, Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops, are New York Times graphic novel bestsellers, and her graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, was on former President Barack Obama’s 2022 list of favorite books, movies, and music and named a New York Times Notable Book. Her new children’s picture book, Rebecca, releases tomorrow. “My first reaction to Rebecca was awe,” says Connie Hsu, publishing director of Roaring Brook Press. “My mind began to think about all the common ‘rules’ about picture book publishing. Here, the main protagonist is an adult, the book discusses loss, and two individuals die in the book! But I simply had to publish it.” Find the book here, if you’d like.

P.S. More on grief, including how to write a sympathy note, how to talk to kids about death, and 17 reader comments on loss.

(Top photo by GS Creative/Stocksy.)