It shattered it completely. It took me a half a year later, my senior year of high school, for me to realize that I was standing in a pile of sharp-edged fragments that were cutting at my legs for attention. Looking closer, I saw that they were pieces, pieces of a mirror image that had once told me who I was. I was in survival mode though: I needed to graduate from high school, needed to ignore this pile at my feet. I wasn't even sure what it meant.

When it came time for me to go to college, I was extremely thankful for the fresh start, to go somewhere where I wasn't just the girl whose sister had died, who had been so brave through it all. I wanted to be known for more. I wanted to be known for me. But as I began to realize that in order for people to get to know me, I would have to show them who I am, I looked down at the pile of fragments at my feet and I felt hopeless. I didn't know who I was anymore.

Emilee and my relationship had been entangled in every part of my life. She was the older sister, all I had ever known was life with her. When she was torn from me, everything I had known about myself, about life, was destroyed. My life was tied with hers. I measured so much of who I was by her. My understanding of life, and how I made sense of it, was in and through the relationship we had built together.

Now, grief was clouding my life, and I couldn't pull apart what was me, and what was the grief. How could I? I did not know what it meant to be me anymore. And as I approached college, I was forced to start picking up the fragments at my feet, to rebuild who I was.

The issue here is that the number one question everyone is asking of you in college is "who are you?" A lot of this question is answered by how you spent your high school years. But for me, from Emilee's diagnosis at the end of my sophomore year all the way to senior year, these years were spent surviving as a family, and then grieving. My high school years were stolen from me, and though I did get to be involved and have a high school experience, everything was tainted by my loss.

So I struggled. How could I answer these questions when I did not know the answers myself? How could I get beyond this event that was defining my life, but which I did not want to have define me? There was no handbook, no guide on how to recover and find yourself after losing someone. So I blindly tried to find my way on my own. And I took each day as it came.

At times I felt like I was lying to others, wearing a mask of the old Lindsey, of extroverted, energetic, funny Lindsey, who wasn't struggling inside. Putting on the "best me" got exhausting, and by winter time, when dates and anniversaries passed and made me realize how shattered and broken I actually was, I gave up. I gave into the pain and depression for a while, and I grew quiet and distant. I did not know how to reconcile the grief with the real me.

The thing is, they were both a part of me. The grief and I were not separate entities, they were one, together, fully the reality of what life looked like for me. I was trying to separate them from each other, to hide away my grief, and put forward the best of me. But the truth was, people in college were catching me at a time of my life when I was still developing who I was while I was still dealing with my past.

As I got to know others around me, I found I wasn't alone. There were others coming into college with shattered identities, looking to make a fresh start. They too had put on perfect fronts to make friends, but had now gotten too exhausted. They too were trying to redefine who it is they were. And although I felt extremely behind in this process of finding who Iwas, it was a comfort to know I was among friends.

I still struggle. And though it helps to know others are rebuilding their identities alongside me, it is different for me. I have to rebuild while combatting grief. And grief clouds, confuses, and makes me tired and less efficient. I get angry and frustrated with myself, and I still have a lot of fragmented pieces at my feet. But an image has begun to form before me, and though it is a work in progress, I think Emilee would be proud. Because I am proud. I have been through a lot to get to where I am and who I am today.

My shattered identity is still a battle I am fighting, but I want to thank my friends in college who took me in and accepted me where I was. They forgave me when I was not at my best. They realized my case was different, that years were stolen from me, and that I was in the middle of a process of discovery and of grieving. And I especially want to thank those friends who were willing to share with me that they too were suffering from shattered identities. What a gift it has been to walk this journey of discovery and rebuilding with you.

Somehow, I don't feel as ashamed for having a shattered identity. It is a part of my story. It is who I am. And it has made me have to think that much clearer and harder about who it is I want to be. It has been a roller coaster trying to live with grief and understand who I am, but it has made me stronger, and it has brought some absolutely wonderful people into my life that I probably never would have gotten to know.

So, here's to shattered identities, and friends who get it, to rebuilding self and learning through it all, that it's ok, that it's hard, but that it's a part of your story, a part of who you are. I for one, am extremely proud of this mirror image forming before me. A lot of time and thought has been put into it, a lot of questions have been asked.

All because I started with a pile of sharp-edged fragments, lying at my feet.