When my sister died in August, I vomited my guts out. I tried to eat sometimes. Thinking it might make me feel better, or that my body might be able to cope better if it was healthier. But I vomited everything back out. I was sneeringly, nastily, hatingly disgusted with myself.

She had been sick for so long that I'd only thought of her as being sick, forevermore, I couldn't imagine her really dying after so many years of resilience. I despised and wounded myself for our complacency. We should have spent every fucking minute with her. Yes, I'm emotional. I should have given up work and stayed with her. I should have made sure that she got whatever she wanted, or got to do anything she wanted. She was in a hospice for the ever-ill. There were some young people. But I should have been there. She loved the hospice dog.

A nurse spent the last two hours with her. I hate me and everything I stand for. On her 9pm round, this nurse checked in my sister's room and noticed her breath was shallow. She tried to call us. She sat with her. I was at the fucking movies, alone. My parents had gone on their first holiday in five years, to a winery in the hills, for a weekend.

My sister said, "I love the yellow the best," and the nurse wrote it down. Then she sang, brokenly, some parts of Christmas carols. Then she died. We asked the nurse if she had definitely heard her correctly - about the yellow. She didn't own anything yellow. She only wanted warm colours around her, like red and purple and pink. When I wake up, when I'm trying to sleep, when I have any time to think, my thought goes: This is how it is to lose you.