Losing My Sister

Grief is what led me to create Leighan’s List - in part to try and help other people navigate estate management, which is a painful process even if everything is in place, but also to somehow keep Leighan with us. Not that you could ever forget my little sister - she had very strong opinions and shared them (often). Leighan was also loving, caring, great fun and was a brilliant mother, partner, daughter and sister. The outpouring of grief from friends, neighbours and colleagues when she died showed us that everyone who met her thought she was as special as we did.

Leighan worked at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital and was part of the theatre team. She met a lot of people in this role and often made a big impression. I’d often get colleagues at work telling me they met her and how lovely she was to them at a time when they felt scared and vulnerable; once, a colleague left chocolates and a thank you card on my desk to pass on to Leighan because she stayed quite sometime after her shift finished to support his wife who was scared about the procedure she was about to have and Leighan stayed two hours extra to support her. Leighan was also the life and soul of the party - famous for her skittle vodka, legendary parties and BBQs.

Her funeral was held in February 2021, and we were restricted to 30 people, so her colleagues at the hospital asked whether the funeral procession could go via the hospital. We were completely overwhelmed first to see our street and the main road in Clydach full of friends, neighbours and former colleagues and then to see over 100 people in the grounds of the Royal Glamorgan Hospital, all waiting to pay their respects.

It’s hard to articulate how awful it is to lose a sibling - especially at such a young age; you feel like you’ve been cheated out of the chance to continue to share your life and to grow old together. You realise how much you shared when you feel their absence at every single family occasion and when something happens and you think, “I can’t wait to tell Leighan… “ and then it hits you again that she is not here. I miss her every day, and I realise that the phrase heartbroken describes a hollow feeling in your chest that never goes away - I still have that over two years later.

I’ve been very involved with Leighan’s children, Paige and Aaron, and she would be so proud of them and how they’ve coped - Paige moving house and getting promoted at work and Aaron finishing school and completing an engineering course at college. As a family - my mother, my brother, my older sister and I have tried our best to be there for them and to talk about and share memories of Leighan.

They say that grief is the price we pay for love, and so perhaps when we consider how much we all loved Leighan and she loved us, it is understandable that we all feel this huge gap in our lives. However, Leighan’s favourite saying was “It is what it is”, and we have to move forward with our lives and honour her love of life by living ours.

If you have siblings, make time for them, make sure they know you love them and spend time with them. I have no regrets in that respect - Leighan and I were extremely close - I only wish we’d had more time together because 45 years was nowhere near enough.