A month after this picture was taken my remarkable sister died
I was three and a half when my sister, Kate, blazed into my world. One of my earliest memories is going to meet her in hospital, bemused by this tiny, puckered baby in Mum’s arms.
We had a contented childhood growing up in Leamington Spa. Our parents worked hard and loved us deeply, despite having their own rocky moments, encouraging Kate and me to think critically about the world and to be curious about others. The firstborn, I was sensible, organised, with a streak of perfectionism.
Kate was always wilder, with an eclectic fashion sense and an infinite capacity for silliness and chaos. By my mid-teens, my perfectionism had developed into a destructive eating disorder, shifting our family dynamics. Looking back, it must have taken a great toll on Kate, barely into her own adolescence, to cope with a family lost at sea, no shoreline in sight. Yet she never showed any resentment, only the deepest compassion.
Eventually I recovered, and we went to university in different places, and began our own lives. I moved to London in the mid-1990s, working in banking. Kate explored the world: she worked with street children in Peru, met shamans in the jungle and sailed down the Amazon.
By our 30s, Kate had moved to Bristol, embarking on a career she loved in mental health social work. I was still in London, married, having had three babies in quick succession. Kate revelled in being an aunt, regularly sending little gifts and cards. When she announced in 2013 that she was pregnant, we were over the moon; she’d always wanted to be a mother. When her longed-for son arrived, my children were three, five and six, and our kids have grown up more like siblings than cousins.
If Kate and I had drifted apart in our 20s, motherhood magnetically snapped us back together. In the summer of 2014, Kate and her partner temporarily split, so she and her tiny baby came to live with us for a while. They took up residence and it was as if we had been transported back 20 years, sharing a home, surfaces scattered not with makeup but with baby things.
But a few weeks later, Kate discovered a lump in her right breast. We assumed it was a blocked milk duct and when the diagnosis of cancer came, we were stunned. In an act that came to typify how Kate approached her illness, she wrote a heartfelt thanks to the doctor who had delivered the news.
Mum and I took it in turns to care for my sister after she had surgery. We sat together as the violent scarlet of the chemotherapy entered her veins, understanding the devilish conundrum that she must be poisoned to have hope. It was gruelling. Kate was wraith-like, devoured by fatigue and nausea.
Kate went into remission and, little by little, life got back on track. Her partner moved in with her, her career was flying and her son, adored by all, was growing. We saw each other regularly, our families spending holidays together, often with Mum, who needed a break from caring for Dad, who by then had Alzheimer’s.
In December 2017. Dad was admitted to hospital, where it was discovered he had terminal cancer. Just a month later, Kate received a second cancer diagnosis. This time, she required more invasive surgery. Dad died in February 2018. Meanwhile, my marriage ended, my husband moving out the week after we buried Dad. Despite her own illness and difficult recovery, Kate tenaciously supported me as I adjusted to solo parenting. On my first birthday newly single, my sister arrived in a whirlwind of thoughtful gifts to celebrate; we ate Chinese takeaway and chatted until the early hours of the morning.
A cancer diagnosis shreds a solid future into quivering slivers of diagnosis, prognosis
and treatments. During her second treatment, Kate started discussing the idea of radical acceptance: focusing on living in the present moment, accepting one’s thoughts, feelings and circumstances as they are now, without judgement or trying to predict the future. Instead of asking, "Why me?", Kate would say, "Why not me?"
Some of Kate’s procedures were brutally painful, yet her radical acceptance allowed for the necessity of not only undergoing them but also finding ways to cope. She focused on deepening connections with those she loved as a way of replenishing her inner well of strength and resilience. She wrote "Flow like water" on the front of her diary.
I had always enjoyed writing and, just before lockdown, I began taking it seriously. Then, after being laid off mid-pandemic, I did something reckless, blowing my redundancy money to write a novel about Costanza Piccolomini, who lived 400 years ago in Italy and showed great resilience in the face of male power. Kate, an expert in female trauma, advised me. A voracious reader, she had an unshakeable belief that Constanza would make it into print. It’s one of my greatest sorrows that Kate never got to hold my finished novel, which is dedicated to her; she would have been prouder than anyone.
A trip to London in January 2023 was the first inkling that something was very wrong. She was breathless climbing the stairs. It turned out she had a massive pleural effusion; her lung was filled with fluid. A terminal diagnosis swiftly followed. Our world went dark, as we struggled to make sense of her short prognosis.
Kate spent her final months helping those she loved prepare for her death. Most of all, she savoured the small moments. We walked among bluebells and ate ice cream. My sister used the last of her energy on trips, smiling for photos to give us precious mementos. In October 2023, we went to ABBA Voyage. She looked beautiful in sequins, with sparkly eyeshadow and glitter strewn across her face. We danced and sang and cried.
In the two weeks before she died, Kate withdrew, preparing herself for her own spiritual journey. She was peaceful, having come fully to terms with her own mortality with a pragmatic grace I suspect is rare. The last time I saw her, she held my hand and told everyone how happy she was to see me and be surrounded by the people she loved.
The death of a parent, child or partner is often talked about; less so the death of a sibling, a unique grief. Since Kate died, I’ve felt a tangible loss of my own childhood. She was the only one who knew my life from a child’s perspective, who shared my memories, who understood how my worldview had been formed. Typically, Kate wasn’t interested in funeral planning, but she did choose a poem by Seamus Heaney, with a line about his family going to Mass and him staying with his mother, peeling potatoes. To Kate, this epitomised the quiet, precious moments she spent with her son doing unremarkable things.
Following Kate’s example, I seek out ‘peeling potato’ moments: watching repeats of Love Island and listening to podcasts with my teens, going to the theatre, cooking for friends. I’m a bit braver, wearing glitter eyeshadow and bright colours like she did, feeling greater pleasure in exercising my body and trying hard to "flow like water".
Living in this world without Kate is hard, but I’m reminded every day what’s important: it’s not how many breaths you take, but how many breathtaking moments you make.
Costanza (Renegade Books) by Rachel Blackmore is out now
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