I'm the 4th of 6 children.
Our ages: 19, 26, 30, 34, 36 and my oldest sister would have been 42 if she hadn't passed away in 2012.
So when I was a born, my oldest sister was 12. When my youngest sister was born, my oldest sister was 23 and already had a baby of her own! So my littlest sister was an aunty to someone a year older than her. (She was a complete accident by the way, my Mum was 45 and didn't think she'd be capable of getting pregnant anymore)
So anyway, my family moved around a fair bit and as that happened, the older ones started staying in the places we moved from so my relationships with all of them are quite different at different stages of my life.
As a baby, my oldest sister and I were very close (i don't remember this obviously). I used to copy everything she did and she doted on me constantly. In her late teen/early adult years, she was very close with my next oldest sister even though they were 8 years apart. I don't remember us being close at this time, both of them shared the garage as their bedroom and they didn't pay us much attention. Mostly I remember my oldest spending hours doing her hair and both of them introducing me to grunge music. At some point, my oldest sister moved out with her boyfriend and had a gorgeous little girl. We moved states when I was about 10 and my two oldest sisters didn't come with us. The younger one moved in with my oldest and her daughter and they were super close.
Fast forward a year and my Mum had a baby too! I was 11 at the time. Between my niece and my little sister, I learnt a lot about how to look after a baby. I used to change nappies, bottle feed, bathe, clothe, put them to bed, play with them, etc etc. My Mum was amazing in that she worked full time afternoon/night shifts 6 weeks after having a traumatic birth that could have killed her and resulted in an emergency hysterectomy at age 45!!! However it also meant that I had to step up and help out which thankfully, I really enjoyed doing. I didn't realise the impact that had until I grew up and my friends had children. I then discovered that I knew about 10x more than the average person. I try not to act like a know it all around other people's babies but I also take great pride in this knowledge and LOVE small children. Anyway, I loved my little sister and she was really cute until she grew up into a typical annoying teenager who is the only sibling who looks anything like me but whom I don't have a very close relationship with at the moment.
Going back to my oldest sister. She broke up with her boyfriend and eventually moved down to where we were at the time to get some family support and start fresh. She lived with us for a while but soon got a house close by. We were still pretty close but I saw her more as a cool younger Mum figure than a sister, and I think I always kept that view. I used to stay at her house often, i played with her daughter and at night we watched horror movies and ate pizza.
Eventually my parents moved us 2 hours away and 6 months later, I moved back with my oldest sister. In her backyard there was a big shed that was converted into a small, dodgy unit that I lived in for a very affordable price. I was in my final year of high school and we got along great! We weren't super close but she was really understanding and accepting of who I was and what I did. I felt very comfortable and relaxed living with her. At this point, she had a horrible boyfriend who was a creep and who I believe, led her down a very dark path. Now, my sister was never a saint. I knew she took drugs and she knew I'd tried them, but she'd always done well for herself, managing hotels/ restaurants etc. She never had a lot, but her daughter never went without.
At some point my niece moved back to her Dad's and my sister couldn't live with that. She was definitely on some hard drugs at this point and her boyfriend knew our family didn't like him. My family can be quite overwhelming and when her boyfriend eventually worked it out that we didn't want him around, we stopped seeing them very often. They both moved 2 states away to be near her daughter. I barely spoke to her during this time and I always felt guilty for that.
Exactly 1 month before she died, she called me and we spoke for almost an hour. It was clear she wasn't quite sober but it was such a great chat. She sounded really happy and even hopeful. She hadn't sounded like that in a long while. I really enjoyed that call, it is something I'll always cherish.
1 month later I was meeting 2 of my sisters for lunch. We met in the carpark and I thought it weird that my oldest sisters husband was with her. It was then that she said, "Natalie's dead" before crying her eyes out. I don't think i heard what she said properly but my other sister was screaming "No! No!" and I had to grab her cause she was falling over. I don't know when I finally understood what was happening, but I definitely didn't fall apart as much as the others. I never did. It took me a long time to realise that death affects everyone very differently and that just because I didn't collapse or cry everytime someone said her name, it didn't mean I didn't l love her just as much. At the time of her death, I was the only family member that she didn't avoid. I was the only one her boyfriend thought didn't hate him (I did, I just didn't voice it because I didn't want to lose her).
My sister died of a drug overdose. We had a very different relationship than I have with my other siblings.