 It’s been nearly thirty years since my sister Amy’s snowboarding accident in Whistler Blackcomb — 1996 — and still, there are moments where the pain grips me like it just happened yesterday. The details might blur a little with time, but the grief hasn’t softened the way people think it will. Time has softened some details, sure — the names of specialists, the exact hospital room number, what I was wearing when I got the call. But the grief? It hasn’t faded the way people expect it to. Anytime I start to tell someone what happened, the tears still come. My voice still catches. And I find myself fumbling to explain a loss that didn’t come with a funeral. Amy didn’t die that day. But I still lost her. She was just in her twenties — full of fire and freedom, juggling part-time jobs while chasing a degree. Always out, always moving, always surrounded by friends. She had this magnetic energy that made people orbit around her. Reckless, but in that intoxicating way that made you want to follow her anywhere. We fought like sisters do — loud and often — she accidentally gave me a black eye once (long story). But underneath all the bickering, I was her safe space. Her “human journal,” she’d call me. The one she confided in. I never told her this, but I looked up to her. I mimicked her fashion, her dance moves, even chose the same university to stay close to her. The day she left for Whistler, we got into it over a red blouse I borrowed without asking. Our last words before she left? Angry ones. Something stupid. And I’ve replayed that argument in my head more times than I can count. I was working at a retail clothing store when the call came. It was our mom — her voice shaky, words barely forming. Amy had an accident. She was being transferred from Whistler to Royal Columbian Hospital. No helmet. A high-speed fall. No witnesses. A traumatic brain injury. The world tilted. She made it. But not in the way we hoped. Amy spent two weeks in a coma. We met with neurologists, clung to every shred of hope they offered. They told us her young brain gave her a good chance at full recovery. So we believed them. We had to believe them. When she finally woke up, she was confused. Her memory foggy. We told ourselves it was temporary. But the version of Amy we knew never really came back. When Amy was finally discharged from the hospital and rehabilitation centre, she was someone else. Her body didn’t work the same. Her speech was slower and different. She needed the support of a frame to walk and sometimes even a wheelchair. Her moods shifted like the weather in Vancouver, and her short term memory was severely impaired. Every now and then, I’d catch a flicker of the old her — a smile, a shared memory, a look that told me she remembered who we used to be together. But it never lasted long. She once told me she felt like a burden — because of the chair, because of needing help, because she knew people saw her differently. And I hated that she felt that way. Because underneath it all - she was still Amy. Still my sister. But she was also someone new. Somehow, the roles had reversed. I became the big sister, the protector, the one who showed up — even when my heart was breaking. And I didn’t know how to stop missing the version of her I grew up with. I missed the late night calls. The silly inside jokes. The way she could intimidate my boyfriends with one sarcastic look. The whirlwind energy of someone who never, ever slowed down. That’s the cruelest part of this kind of grief and the world doesn’t always know how to hold it or acknowledge it. There’s no obituary. No memorial. No socially acceptable space to say, I lost someone, when they’re still very much alive. But the loss is real. And I carry it, quietly, every single day. And yet — somewhere in the mess of it all — I’ve learned that love doesn’t disappear just because someone changes. Amy is most certainly a different person in many ways and her physical constraints just make things that much harder. The New Amy is softer, slower, more emotional….sometimes irrational in ways that frustrate me more than I want to admit. Her life is harder now, and so is mine. But she is still here. Still fighting and still deeply loved. If you’re loving someone after a brain injury, or dementia, or anything that’s taken pieces of them away… I want to share something that took me years to accept: Your grief is valid. Your tears, even decades later, are not weakness. They’re love that had nowhere to go when the world tilted. I still miss being Amy’s human journal. I still miss the late-night talks, even the stupid arguments over borrowed clothes. But I also love the New Amy — because she’s still physically here and we still share many laughs. And when I’m in a good place — when I have the energy and space to show up — I do For Amy, then and now. I love every version of you. 💬 Has your love or grief changed shape too? If this story resonates with you — if you’ve loved someone through loss, or your life changed in a way you never expected — I’d truly love to hear your story. Please feel free to share comments, or reach out directly. You're not alone. Categories All
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