From fullness to emptiness back to fullness

I’m Rianna. 

The youngest of five children. 

My siblings are Annie, Marta, Mason and Celine. They are my role models and the highlights of my family gatherings. 

As a child, my life was filled with the usual naivety of a coddled little girl. My days were occupied with fun, joy, laughter and love. But on March 28th, 2012, I became empty. I was 14 years old. I had gone to bed with braids in my hair in order to have an effortlessly wavy look the next day at school. In the wee hours of the morning, I awoke abruptly to the sound of my mother sobbing in my brother’s room, the room next to mine. I fearfully went to see what had happened. I quickly learned that my sister Celine had died. All my joy left my body. My brother earnestly proceeded to call my sisters to announce the news. I went downstairs to join the sad group of my parents and the officers who had come to bear us this. Then I went back to bed like nothing had happened. The next day, I bused to school with my effortlessly wavy hair. Once I arrived, I couldn’t help but cry and tell my friends what had happened, and my dad eventually came to pick me up. The rest of that week is a blur. All I remember is my sister’s lifeless, wax-figure looking body lying in a funeral home down the street from where we lived. Most of my life has felt lifeless since. You never think you’ll lose someone until you do. 

Celine’s life came to a close when she was 23 in a car accident. When her life ended, I began trying to relive her. I wanted to absorb her into my being so that I could never lose her again. Instead of grieving her, I began to study her and her life to learn as much as I could about her in order to use this knowledge to guide my own life. Anything that I could learn, I would. I’d hangout with her friends. Listen to her music. Read her books and her journals. Move to cities she had lived in. Go to schools she had gone to. Anything to feel close to her. If she couldn’t live anymore, I would live for her. And in this I lost myself.

I was seeking well-being by trying to be like my sister. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work. Then I started to seek it out in others, in myself, in experiences.  Now, I develop my well-being in a multitude of ways that contribute to my health. I also discover new ways every day.

Well-being to me is doing yoga in my living room with some incense burning in the back, it’s walking home from school as the sun sets while listening to my favorite songs, it’s dancing in my kitchen to throwback songs with my friends, it’s family board game nights, it’s cuddling with the person I love. It’s indulging in everything it means to be alive and young, like my sister did when she was around.

After what happened to me when I was 14, I never thought I’d be well again. But I’m able to find moments of well-being in all of my days. That’s what makes them worth living. Even though my sister is gone, I’m still here and I can explore what gives me delight. I have to. We all have to.