Erin Leigh Nigh - Four Corners: A Practical Memoir About Siblings, Grief, And Learning How To Carry On Without Letting Go

Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet its often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.

Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

My dreams have generally eluded me come morning, but this nightmare is something different. Im lying face down on the ground, trying to get as close as I can to the earth, to sink down into it. My heart feels so heavy that I cant hold my body up. Sometimes Im sobbing or screaming, a restless energy running through me. Sometimes I feel catatonic. I cant move. I dont always know how we got here, but the result is the same: one of my three younger siblings is gone.

I wake up and begin to realize it was just a nightmare, but it takes my body time to agree with my mind. I feel both physically and emotionally exhausted, as if I really did spend hours bawling on the ground. My muscles are tight, my heart hurts, and the heaviness follows me into my day.

I dont remember how young I was the first time I got stuck here, but this dream has been visiting me for years and shakes me every time. I used to be able to check on my siblings to see that they were okay and give them a hug, but when I left for university and could no longer do that, the feeling of dread lasted longer.

Yet as much as it hurt, I could wake up. I could try to love my siblings better, grateful for their existence and aware of how lost I felt when I thought they were gone just for a short time. It was the worst thing I could imagine, but as real as it felt, it could only belong in a nightmare.

Early on a Sunday morning in mid-November, I woke up to the sound of heavy and insistent knocking on my door. I felt disoriented as the knocking continued before I finally realized who it was.

My brother Adam was in town the night before, meeting up with some friends from his automotive service technician program at Fanshawe College. He had been living with me during their eight-week semester that fall, returning to London to celebrate the end of exams and see his friends after a couple of weeks back home.

Since home was over an hour away, Adam planned to stay the night at a friends house. I knew he might stop by on Sunday, so my next thought was that it seemed early for him to be knocking on my door after being out the night before. But when I opened the door, it was a police officer asking me if I was Adams sister.

One of his friends lived on a hill overlooking a small lake, and they gathered there for a campfire. Someone suggested taking the familys canoe out on the water in the early hours of the morning, and even though it was pitch black, three people got into the small two-person canoe without life jackets, including Adam. It wasnt long before it tipped.

Two of them were able to climb out on the other side of the lake, and it took them thirty minutes to round the top of the hill before they got back to the house and realized they couldnt find Adam.

By the time the police came to notify me (one of Adams friends knew where I lived), they had been looking for hours and he was still missing. I was given the responsibility of sharing the news with my parents, who met us at the lake. There was nothing we could do but watch their efforts: a drone in the air, a boat slowly cruising the lake, and search crews combing through the brush. Even though I knew they were doing everything they could, it wasnt enough if they still hadnt found him five hours later.

Our younger brother Aidan soon came to meet us, but our sister Emily was attending college in Sault Ste. Marie, seven hours away. We waited all day, alternating between standing outside the car and sitting inside, before Aidan and I eventually went back to my apartment. I rubbed his back as he fell asleep, needing to keep my hand anchored to him as I whimpered, Adam, where are you?, murmuring his name every so often as if he might hear me.

On Monday morning after booking plane tickets for Emily and their boyfriend Tim to come home that night, Aidan and I returned to the lake. As we walked up to the house, we met a makeshift receiving line of some of our family and friends, staggered between the road and the backyard. They had all arrived not long before us, but we didnt realize that others knew what was going on or that they would be there.

The first person we met was our cousin Matt, and he enveloped us in a hug. Seeing all of these people there was emotional, both comforting to see their faces but also a realization that this was really happening. We were officially outside normal. This wasnt just a little scare with a hopefully happy ending. People were travelling to be there, leaving their jobs to do so. I had packed hoping for a trip to the hospital, to sit around Adams bed and help him get better, but suddenly even that seemed out of reach.

Our parents were in the backyard, but no one shared any updates and our parents thought someone else must have already told us. Eventually I heard something that confused me and I asked my mom what was going on. Adam was found shortly before we arrived. He had drowned right where the canoe had tipped over.