The Story
Why are we doing this? Early in the morning of August 25, 2015, I was wakened by Lisa, who was handing me my phone with words to the effect, ‘You need to call your parents. They tried to call us both a a couple of times.’ Calls before 630am are rare for most people unless there is an emergency. Our family and life was no different. I started to call my mom assuming something was wrong with my younger sister, Anne. Anne had been having seizures since about 1990. Sometimes, her seizure activity would increase dramatically and she would need to go to the hospital. At one point a couple years prior to this day, her body started rejecting her anti-seizure medications to the point that she was in a coma for over a week. So, while calls like this were awful they weren’t unexpected. They were usually just updates from my rightfully worried parents. Not that morning. My mom answered and simply said, with a quiver in her voice, “Sean, Anne is dead.” Losing an older loved one or family