As to your family, that is going to be a harder sell. After all your parents have been through, they don’t have any reserves. Really, they need to be recharging themselves after this drain, but I’m sure they have no clue how to do that. Perry is at a point where he’s going to have to figure it out or let it crush him. I’m glad he’s trying meds, but that only goes so far. Most people don’t feed the body correctly; trying to feed the soul is trickier still. I’d suggest therapy or grief councelling, but I’m not sure how well that would go over. Perry might be more receptive to it than your parents.

I think the adversarial component to your relationship with Star helped fuel the energy exchange. You train harder when you train with a partner. Heaven help your next sparring partner. I only hope you can find someone approaching Star’s calibre. Maybe you really should run for office…?

The hardest thing, I find, is accepting the emptiness, realizing it needs to be filled, and realizing that succeeding is not replacing. Easier said than done, but you do the best you can.

In my life I’ve been fortunate to have lost very few people I love, no one that I loved as much as you love your sister. I can’t imagine how hard that is, combined with being the person that holds your family together. As Nicki said, you have friends you can lean on, who will willingly and lovingly support you through this. Give them the opportunity to do for you.

sheep

Nicki