My Sister – My Friend by Eleanor Shepherd

The Interrupted Life – Blog 2

                    

Stephen Pelley and his older sister, Suzanne were close. That is what happens in families that move frequently. The children find that the only people with whom they share a long-term history are their siblings. Thus, despite the three years difference in their age, Stephen and Suzanne often found themselves doing things together and sharing friends, particularly during adolescence. 

                  Another element that drew these two young people close to each other was the love that they shared for music and the joy they found in playing and singing together. One of their dreams was to become musicians and share their music with the world. Suzanne would create the songs and Stephen would accompany her on the piano or guitar as she sang them. Their gifts of music enhanced their times together. 

                  The family had been in New Brunswick for three years because of their parents’ work in The Salvation Army. All of them were excited to be returning to Montreal. Stephen was enjoying the freedom of a year off from formal education, having completed high school, and not yet determined what he would study and where he would go next. Suzanne had completed Junior College and was also at a transition time. She decided to take the opportunity to visit a close friend who had recently moved to Calgary. There, she was involved in a fatal car accident. The other driver ran a red light and hit the passenger side of the vehicle. The police report noted that she did not suffer, but was killed instantly. 

                  

                  Her family was devastated. Later I will share the story from the perspective of her parents, but today I am considering her brother and the impact on his life.  

                  Stephen found that during these tumultuous days he most missed Suzanne’s influence. “She had a particular talent for keeping me in check. If I made an unfortunate decision (or appeared to be considering one), Suzanne would intervene with her own special brand of advice. Although occasionally

annoying, it was never condescending or judgemental.”

   

                  Suzanne’s death multiplied his internal confusion. He did not know how to feel, as emotions seemed to be taking him on a scary roller-coaster ride of grief. He vacillated between moments of sensing utter hopelessness, raw grief and emptiness, that he found were suddenly replaced by periods of emotional numbness when he could feel nothing. 

                  Raised by parents with strong Christian convictions and a faith that seemed to be able to handle all the challenges that came their way, Stephen was trying to discern what they had given him that he could absorb and use in the formation of his own faith and what he could not yet and might never embrace. 

                  When Suzanne died, Stephen felt that he had lost not only his sister and in many ways his closest friend, but also someone who had acted as his conscience. Every time he faced a decision, particularly one of a moral nature, he would find himself asking, “What would Suzanne do?” He discovered later that this reflection actually helped him to develop his own conscience and become capable of making moral decisions. 

                  A unique aspect of Stephen’s story was a vital role that Suzanne had when his wife, Stephanie lost her 32-year-old sister to cancer. Stephanie helped Stephen significantly, a few years earlier in encouraging him to get professional grief counselling to deal with suppressed emotions. 

                  Stephanie’s family chose a gravesite at the end of a short row in Mount Royal cemetery. The spot overlooked the house she and her boyfriend inhabiated and the Music Department of the University of Montreal where they met. However, there were no other graves of family members nearby and her mother particularly lamented her being buried all alone. 

                  In the cemetery, after the ceremony, as Stephen walked along the row of graves, he stopped half way down the row. He waited for the others, then turning to his mother-in-law, he pointed to the marker he stood by. “She will not be alone,” he said. The plaque had been laid 21 years earlier. The inscription read: In Loving Memory of Suzanne Michelle Pelley.

Word Guild Award
2011

Word Guild Award
2018

Eleanor Shepherd from Pointe Claire, Quebec has more than 100 articles published in Canada, France, the U.S.A., Belgium, Switzerland and New Zealand. Thirty years with The Salvation Army in Canada and France including ministry in Africa, Europe, Haiti and the Caribbean furnished material for her Award winning book, More Questions than Answers, Sharing Faith by Listening as well as her Award winning stories in Hot Apple Cider and Christmas with Hot Apple Cider. She co-authored with her husband Glen the Bible Study book Why? Families. Eleanor recently retired from being a pastor in Montreal with The Salvaton Army.

Word Guild Award
2009