If you want a happy ending, it depends on where you stop your story

Nice quote from Orson Welles. If you stopped my story 3 summers ago on the Outer Banks, where the bar was the entire kitchen island and the house was filled with inflatable palm trees and funny fish, and my very best extended family was there, the kind of friends and family with whom you can be your "authentic self" (whatever that is) . We shot pool, hot tubbed, had cocktails from a cooler jug at the beach in late afternoon, and had some of the best laughs -the kind where we doubled over with "stop it" pain. What is it about those times that you think nothing can ever break this bond, that there is nowhere else in the world you would want to be than with these people, all quirky and complicated and each essential to the chemistry of the group. That you all are invincible, so clever and powerful and always having each other's back.

And nothing any of us did broke the magic of that time. A tsunami called fate swept my sister away despite how superhumanly hard we held onto her. It's been a year since she left us and it is true we will never be the same. We get together when we can, and so much is unspoken. We still laugh and drink and try to remember her at her best, but there are only two of us who can actually talk about how much we miss her. Thank you, M. That is how we deal and the others deal their way and I thank them too for their comforts, which are many.

"And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic
which took a whole life to develop and market----
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest the lip of the stage..."

John Updike, "Perfection Wasted"