Hello and welcome to Dichotomy with Shannon, this podcast, I'm gonna talk about something that, of course I didn't plan. It's not that I would ever wanna talk about this, it's actually what I learned after losing my sisters. We're gonna set the scene a little bit so those that know me, you know what happened.
And those that are finding this podcast, I'm sure you just experienced a loss and you are grieving and searching for answers. And if you had those bone cries, those. The howling, the crying, the on your knees, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the, I don't know how I'm gonna see the sunshine ever again.
Then you might wanna stick around with me for this episode. My sister was my very best friend. We were 23 months apart, grew up. Inseparable lived together. She actually lived with me up until about five years ago where she got her own place. But God, mom, to my babies every holiday with me. We had sissy sleepovers every Wednesday.
She was here at my house three times a week. We were close. She knew all my secrets. She was my ride or die, and she came from the same family I came from. So we understood each other. She was definitely like a mom and a dad to me. She was a protector. We had a little bit of a chaotic home growing up, and she definitely rose to be the big sister.
She was such a blessing, an angel, and the night that she passed away, it was October 7th. It's been about eight months now, maybe not even eight months. Okay. This is how it happened. I. Had not heard from my sister in a couple days, and it didn't even occur to me that I didn't hear from her because my in-laws were in town and I was so busy trying to promote my business and finish my book and get all these things together that I was just like tunnel vision and.
I got a call about 8:30 PM from her work and they said that she had not shown in to work, and I immediately just knew because Mandy was such a hard worker. My sister is Mandy. She was such a hard worker. She worked so hard. She was the best 40 hours a week, just like the best employee, and I fell to my knees.
And I started crying and I started crying and my in-laws were like, what are you doing? Get up. She's fine. Don't assume, don't assume. But I just knew and my 17-year-old son had walked out and he was like, mom, I'm going to Auntie's house. I'm like, take Dad and grandpa don't go alone. They show up, they see her car in the driveway and it's her apartment.
And I had already called the cops 'cause I'm like, you need to go bust down her door. So the cops show up. They said they can't do anything about it because it hasn't been two days. And it's not a missing person, but I'm like, listen, she hasn't showed up to work in two days. Her car is there, you need to break in.
So my sweet angel baby 17-year-old son took matters into his own hand and actually jumped on the balcony and the cop said, I wouldn't suggest that, but they were shining the flashlight so you know that they actually did want help him. Sorry, this is hard. I've never actually really talked about it. So my son had jumped in, broke through.
He said the house was really quiet and he screamed like auntie, and he went into her room and that's where he found her. And she had already been gone. He said he didn't touch her, but I don't even know if you guys, I probably shouldn't paint the picture, but what he saw was pretty, it's sad when you see somebody who has probably been dead for two days.
But he did scream a couple times til see, and he said it was so still. He said there was such a stillness, no breath, nothing. It was like creepy and eerie. And of course there's a dead person there, so you'd think that would be creepy and eerie. So Jax walks at, my son, walks downstairs and the cops and everybody are there and he said she's gone.
And the medical examiner went in, took her body. We didn't find out for about six months what had happened. She had COPD and chronic bro bronchitis with patchy pneumonia, so whatever virus that she had, she couldn't survive it because of the COPD. I did have a dream that Mandy had passed away four months before she died, and I said, sissy, you need to go to the doctor.
I had this dream and she said two things to me. She goes, first of all, I don't wanna know if something's wrong. And then she said, second of all, God has a plan for me. And I see now that her plan was always to spread light and love into the world because when I had her celebration of life, we had an open mic and people just stood up.
I had a woman. Stand up from DoorDash. Say she delivered a meal to my sister and Mandy welcomed her in, gave her money. Mandy didn't have money. She gave her money. She gave her son clothing, like all these things. And this was my sister. She just loved so beautifully. She was a true angel. But we're gonna go into what I learned.
So the night that she had died, something had clicked in my brain. I don't know if you've ever experienced such an immense loss. If you guys have have heard that click in the brain, it was like a, and every time it would click, I would realize she was gone again. So I would start that howling cry. It was really bizarre.
I would fall on my knees because it was like a dream, and I was surrounded by friends and family. People had come from all over once they found out because. Thank God I've created a beautiful community. But they would just look at me and I would, something would click and I'd realize she was gone. I don't know.
I completely disassociated if I'm being honest. And that disassociation happened for months. It was it pro. It did not get better until February when my grandmother passed away and I flew home to be with my family. Out there in my hometown, and it was really interesting. They had asked me to read First Thessalonians at my grandmother's funeral, and as I stood up and read, I started to feel this shaking, this uncontrollable shaking, and I heard that click again.
And when I heard that click and all the these cry, I thought it was an ugly cry. I'm not sure. I wasn't on video, so who knows. But after I sat back down in the church, I literally felt a weight lifted and my thoughts were finally my own thoughts again. So for about six months after my sissy passed, I was disassociated.
My thoughts were not my thoughts. I was so numb. I was just trying to make sure my kids were surviving like I had to feed them. You can't just give up on life. You have to keep going. Life keeps moving forward. Huge lesson. Life keeps going. Whether you like it or not, but it's crazy that it went even in that disassociation.
And I would really like to know the science about the masks. So big lesson. The second thing is they tell me, you hear from everybody that death changes people. Oh, death changes people. I truly believe that death did not change me. It made me authentically who I was, so it was a remembering the mask was off, the people pleasing was off, the being unafraid, it was no more.
I just could not find myself in groups of friends that I used to hang out with or certain situations. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't wear the mask anymore. I couldn't pretend that I was comfortable in certain situations, and I also was unapologetic. I'm finally, for the first time. In my life unapologetically who I'm authentically created to be.
That is huge. That is huge. For somebody like me, that was such a lesson like I, after losing somebody like this that you love so much. Gloves are off, man. Life is short. Why live and put yourself in a box that you were never supposed to be in?
I don't know how to else to articulate it. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid to make people uncomfortable anymore. I wasn't gonna dim my light anymore so others could rise or shrink really small to fit into tiny places that the world told me I was. I wasn't programmed anymore. There was a wild change being open to who I was, to who I am as Shannon McVey.
And that I am so grateful losing my sister. I found my voice, and I don't even know how to articulate that. But I found who I was. So there is a part and there is a silver lining that is grateful for the experience. I'm so grateful that I got to live with my sister for most of my life. I'm so grateful that God allowed her to be mine.
I will miss her every single day. I will miss her every single day. My kids will miss her every single day, and we have to learn how to live without her. And that's been a journey. Especially because she was ours. We didn't have to share her with anybody. She wasn't married with kids of her own. She was ours.
She was ours. So yes, the loss is real. The loss is real, but the living on the other side is more real, and I know that she's here behind the scenes making things happen. I can feel it, the direction that I'm going in, how unafraid I am for the very first time. I'm grateful. I'm grateful. So if this resonates with you and you wanna talk about it, you need a friend.
I'm gonna link my website and I can be here for you. And I understand my sister and I had lost both of our parents, so my entire first nuclear family is gone, which is a really weird feeling. I've tried to join Grief Group. And I don't really have many people out there like me at my age, in my forties, to have lost the entire family that you were born into.
It's bizarre. It's weird. I, when I went home to Rhode Island, I got to see the street that I grew up on, that once it was a home with my mother and my father and my sister, we ate dinners together, did homework. And that's all gone. That's all gone. But I do know that life keeps moving on. Life is gonna go, and you know what?
Don't hold back. Don't hold back. You don't need to wait for an immense loss like I had to experience to live your true, authentic self. You can start doing that now. You have permission. God wants that. God wants you to find who you are, created to be your true self. Without all the programming. Do the work to find who you are.
Unlearn, unlearn as much as you learn. I'm here, Shannon McVeigh Dichotomy with Shannon. We're gonna have a lot to show and a lot in store. I gotta learn how to edit, so that'll be fun. Hopefully my microphone didn't shut off and I will see you again. Thank you for listening.