The Gift of Surrender — When My Sister Vicky Died

Lesson learned: the gift of surrender.

It is the hardest, most painful experience one can imagine — losing a sibling. When you have been blessed with a large family like ours, you get to see yourself in each other. We were blessed. There are so many who have siblings and often find themselves learning each other as unique, different individuals. I always had siblings I looked up to for my soon-to-be sixty-five years, because I was the last of this family of eleven… ten, after my youngest brother died at five. Losing our oldest sister is like losing part of the air I have breathed since day one.

I grew up with my nephew  and nieces as if they were my extended siblings. All my life memories are shaped by this family of characters — theatrical, different in our personalities, sometimes getting on each other’s nerves — yet bound by devotion and reverence for one another, in spite of our ups and downs.

Daddy was the happy provider — our anchor of love, joy, jubilation, laughter, music, dance, theatre, and a proud legacy of protection for each other. Mammy was the fierce cornerstone: stern, courageous, our moral compass. After Daddy died, she became our fortress; her love was her lifetime sacrifice for us.

When Vicky's diagnosis was end stage, terminal,  less than two months before she passed, none of us was ready. I was in denial. My friend Chantal had just died. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Vicky.

To me, she was always the “good girl.” Demure, steadfast, prayerful. She loved her Sonny — her husband, my godfather. She loved her children,  her grands and great-grands with an intimacy that was unmistakable. She knew each one to her soul. And she prayed — unceasingly — for them, and for me. “Grace, how are you? How is Daryean?” She would list our names and hold us in her prayers.

That’s how I know: love is prayer — someone holding you up, wishing only your wellbeing, showing kindness, blessing, and presence. In her intimate, unobtrusive way, she gifted me the meaning of surrender.

It was November 22, 2020 — one month after our family’s first loss among eleven siblings. My sister Vicky was the one. 

I can’t dress these words in formality or fine phrasing. This is not a story polished with punctuation. It is simply what came when I tried to write through the ache of her death.

Vicky’s death felt like a breaking. Not only of her body, but of something inside each of us who loved her. The kind of breaking you can’t hold together with words, or even with prayer.

And yet, in that rawness, I stumbled into something I didn’t expect: surrender. The gift of letting go when nothing else could be done. Not surrender as defeat, but surrender as release. Allowing myself to weep, to remember, to admit that I could not fix the hole she left behind.

There is no map for losing a sister. No right phrasing, no tidy ending. But maybe there is this: a gift that comes only in grief — the gift of surrender. Of letting go of control, of answers, of “why.”

It does not take away the pain. But it makes space for love to remain.

Update • September 21, 2025

In memory of Vicky’s birthday — September 26

Our mother Rosie would sing this song at family gatherings. I dedicate it to our Queen, Victoria Clare — our Vicky. Because love continues.

I’ll be loving you, always
With a love that’s true, always…
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year —
But always.

Thank you for remembering with me.

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