Guilt of the Sister

Content Warning: dying process

Growing up as the youngest of four siblings, I always felt guilt. Guilt that my older brothers, Mark and Ken, had to look after me, guilt that my brothers would protect me, and guilt that I didn’t thank them enough.

With that guilt, fear isn’t too far behind. The fear that I will be without them in my life to call, text, or visit. My fear began to materialize in December 2022. Mark mentioned that his eyes were sensitive to light, and he was advised by his optometrist to not wear contacts and to wear glasses. So being the person that I am, I tell Mark to get it checked out by his primary doctor but given his busy schedule of being a working dad of two boys and a loving husband, he couldn’t find the time to do so. Mark’s texts to Ken and I were getting a little weird by misspelling words or saying he felt dumb because he was tripping everywhere and forgot how to use self-checkout at a store. We just thought that Mark was tired.

It was an evening in February 2023 when Ken sent me a text message with a video of Mark. I was cooking beef stew at the time while a huge storm was hitting the Bay Area. When I finally watched the video, I instantly started crying. Mark’s wife Kristen recorded a video of her asking Mark questions. Mark didn’t know why he was sitting at his desk not working and he couldn’t stop fidgeting or focus his eyes. I called Ken asking if he knew what was going on while thinking that Mark suffered a stroke and I was trying to figure out the best way to get down to Southern California. Then the power went out at my place. So, I arranged for our cousin Janelle to head to Mark’s house to watch my nephews while Kristen took Mark to the ER. Since I didn’t know when the power was going to come back on, I turned my cell phone off to conserve the battery.

When I powered my phone back on at 6am, the text came through, “They found a bleeding brain tumor and admitted him to the ICU.” My heart sank and I started balling while screaming. Our dad passed away in 2012 after battling leukemia for a year. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2019 right before the pandemic. Given our family’s “luck”, I feared the worst and hoped for the best. I also feared that I would be too late like I was for our dad, not having been able to say goodbye to him before he passed. Therefore, I drove down and spent that week with Mark and his family while he was in the ICU. Witnessing Mark endure test after test to get the dreaded diagnosis of four stage four glioblastoma tumors with metastases to his spine. In the moment I tried to be strong for Mark and Kristen, and when I finally got to my car I cried uncontrollably. I never wanted any of my family to endure what I had to for treatment, and here is Mark being told he would need to do radiation and chemotherapy with a prognosis of one year. We would’ve taken one year over the six weeks we ended up having with him.

Mark was placed in hospice for the last two weeks of his life. As the days passed, his appetite and cognition lessened. When he heard a dog barking nearby, he thought it was our black lab Ebony that we grew up with as kids. Kristen, Ken and I would each get alone time with him. We each cherished these times with Mark until his last night. Kristen, Ken and I were all together the night before Mark passed since the nurses told us it would be any time once they heard Mark breathing the “death rattle.” We were all so tired, so I told Kristen and Ken to go home, and I would stay with Mark so they could rest. The morning Mark passed I was alone with him holding his hand as he had been doing the death rattle all night. His final gasps were clear and long as he squeezed my hand one last time. Although I remember all of the good times with Mark, those final moments still haunt me, and I will forever have the guilt of the sister.