Making Sense of Juliet's Passing

My older sister having just passed away from the ravages of Cystic Fibrosis when she was 18 and I was 15, it was a time when our family breathed a sigh of, well, relief, sort of. Health had finally returned to our household after 18 years of illness. Suddenly however, my younger sister was diagnosed as having leukemia and we ran the gamut once again. This poem was written to describe the day I found out Juliet was ill, and the day she passed away. I was not able to write this piece until a year ago because it was always too painful for me to dwell on. I hope you like it.

Sweet Juliet, my sweet, sweet Juliet,
With thy locks of burnished hair so long
They didst gently caress me
As tenderly, so very tenderly,
Thou held me in thy arms
While softly, quietly, didst we behold the coming dawn.

I gazed upon thy misty eyes, thy tear-stained countenance,
And mine heart didst weep in pain,
For I knew that thou wouldst ne’er reveal to me
The reason for thy sorrow,
The cause of such disdain.

O dearest sister, if I’d but only known
That this life of thine
Wouldst in such haste be taken from thee,
That thy heart couldst be so eternally shorn
From thy soul’s desires,
And that thy pain and mine,
Though so closely intertwined,
Were really miles,
Were so many, many miles…
Apart.

Yet on the day thee didst die,
I too alongside thee, did cease to exist.
For ‘twas then that my desire for the spectacle of life
And the joys that it wrought,
In their entirety, did disappear.

Yes, then didst I love thee, even now do I love thee,
O Juliet, my love for thee is infinite
And groweth ever stronger with each day that passes.
If that I could, I would die
If only to give thy life back to thee,
That life so cruelly taken from thee.
Because thee had always been for me
The truest expression of life itself;
Always, in thy gentle, unassuming nature,
Didst thee exhibit the highest ideals
Of love and sincerity,
Never asking for more than what could be given,
But always there to give to me
So much more than I deserved.

O dearest Juliet, why, dear God of mine, oh why
Couldst I never speak these words to thee?
Thou didst mean more to me than life itself,
And if unknown to thee then,
Then now, please know, please, you have to know…
Thee were for me the finest sister a brother couldst desire.

For as we wept on that day of thy passing,
It became so clear, so very, very clear,
That whilst thee had been of this earth,
All those whom thee had touched, especially myself,
Had been truly bless’d and made beautiful for a time.

God bless thee, sweet Juliet,
I love thee for having been my sister,
Indeed, I love thee for simply having been there for me;
And if per chance thee may be listening,
Know please that I pray for thee
And that from the depths of mine heart
I wish to God that true happiness is finally thine.