When We Fall Apart

The year before Crystal died, I lost my grandmother.

During that grief, Crystal sent me Ryan Stevenson’s “When We Fall Apart.” She was doing what she had done so many times throughout my life—being my big sister, reaching out when I was hurting, and reminding me that I didn't always have to be strong.

At the time, it was a song from Crystal to me.

I could never have imagined that only a year later, I would be choosing that very same song for Crystal's funeral.

There was another detail that made the song almost impossible for me to ignore.

The song begins with a reference to receiving devastating news when someone was 43 years old.

Crystal was 43 when she died.

I had heard those words before. But after February 9, 2023, they landed completely differently.

Suddenly, this wasn't simply a beautiful song my sister had once sent to comfort me after losing our grandmother. It felt connected to Crystal in a way it never had before.

So I chose it for her.

There is something almost impossible to describe about sitting at your sister's funeral and hearing a song that she had personally sent you when you were grieving someone else.

When Crystal sent it, she was still here.

She was the person on the other end of the phone.

She was my ten-years-older big sister, my second mom, my best friend—the person trying to help me understand that it was okay to grieve.

A year later, I was the one falling apart.

And this time, she wasn't there to help put me back together.

The photographs in this video show the woman behind that loss. They show pieces of an entire lifetime that existed before February 9, 2023—a daughter, mother, sister, aunt and friend. They show ordinary moments that became extraordinary simply because we can never make another one with her.

There are so many things about grief that you don't understand until you're living them.

One is how something as simple as a song can become a time capsule.

When I hear this one, I can remember two versions of myself.

The first had just lost her grandmother and still had her big sister beside her saying, in her own way, it's okay if this hurts.

The second had lost that big sister too.

That's why “When We Fall Apart” belongs here.

Not simply because it was played at Crystal's funeral.

Not simply because of the reference to being 43.

But because Crystal gave this song to me before I ever knew I would need it to grieve her.

She sent it to me when I needed comfort.

One year later, I chose it when the person I wanted comfort from most was the person we were saying goodbye to.

And somehow, through a song she sent me while she was still here, my big sister was still helping me through the grief of losing her.