Helena Carmel Griffith, 13 April, 1964 – 22 September, 1988. Photo by Heidi Griffiths (no relation), 1983.
My sister Helena would have been 52 today. She died when she was 24. Today I’m reminded afresh that she never read any of my books. She never met Kelley. She never saw my life as it is now. She is embedded in almost every memory of the first half of my life; we shared experiences no one else can. When she died she took a chunk of my life with her.
Spring is a grief-laden time for me: the birthdays of my mother and two sisters, all dead. They were the only three people in the world who ever called me Nic.* Now that they’re dead, Nic is dead too.
Nic is dead. That sounds final, like running into a wall or having my life sliced in half by a slamming blast door. That’s not how I feel. I feel as though there’s a door open—upstairs, down the hall, out of sight—to a room whose window is open to the night air, creating a persistent thread of disturbance.
But that, I have decided, is what life is: the unmade bed, the unsealed jar, the unfinished journey. Life is imperfect, unsettled. Life is to be taken on the volley. Nic is just part of Nicola. Nic might be dead but Nicola is just getting started.
Life is to be lived. We can never know who or what is around the corner.
* I have two others sisters and a father, very much alive. I love them, but they never called me Nic.
Nicola Griffith 
I like “Nic” may I call you Nic?
I just started reading ANWAGTHAP. oh she was mean to you. reminds me of a lover who broke or lost those few possessions I treasured. some bitter bewilderment with the sweet. Am enjoying the experience of the odd funny “boxed set”, a luxury already accumulating a buddy waiting list to read. thank you
@Old Gym Rat I honestly don’t know how I feel about that.
@Katmarion Raymond I haven’t read it since I wrote it—actually since I did the readings etc from it. (You can watch those here and here.) But I don’t remember Helena being mean to me. That would have been tricky; I was always bigger, faster, and stronger. So now I’m going to have to take a look and see what I actually wrote.
It’s been almost 24 years since my first true love and wife then ex-wife died, at the age of 45. It was wrenching, and I think would have been even if we hadn’t remained on amicable terms. To this day, there are times when I feel that open door leading to the room with the open window, and the night and the breeze.
@Joel: I don’t think it ever goes away.
Nix to that then Nicola.
When I met my wife, Trudy, I asked if I could call her Troodles. She laughed and said when she worked at the VA in Miami her boss, whom she was close to called her Troodles. It’s been Troodles ever since.