It just occurred to me as I reread a previous post, about what women are willing to put up with, that I had started to write about my sister, who passed away in November of 2008, but didn't finish it or even continue after a certain point.
Putting it on my blog now seems like the right place and time to continue that, both for my healing, and because I think that I owe it to her to tell her story, even if nobody but me ever reads it.
Excellent idea, Chloe.
I looked for the 'story' I had started long ago, but I can't find it in my files. It's probably best to start over anyway. I will not use my sister's name. And, as with some of my other true writings, as I remember things, I may go back to put it in the order in which it happened, so this may take awhile.
Writing this may help me...and, I'm not sure that I would or even could have done things differently in my sister's defense, but over the last 30 or so years, I have often wondered what I could have done to help her in her situation. As I continue, you will see what I mean, I'm sure.
I would like to talk about her now...my sister. And, I have so much to tell.
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She was 2 1/2 years older than me.
We knew each other by heart. If she were here, she would say that. In spite of everything.
I highly recommend sisters sharing a bedroom. I am so glad that I had my sister in the same room with me, even though we both collected more crap in those years than we could fit in the small room, and we didn't have a lot of room to move around, now that I think about it. We had twin beds, and matching headboards. I still have mine. It's wrought iron, and painted white. I keep it in my spare room. I don't know whatever happened to hers, but I am so happy that I still have mine.
We spent so many nights just talking in the dark. Sometimes we'd scratch each other's back...I'd have to say, 'You do mine first', because if I did hers first, she'd fall asleep and I wouldn't get my turn. But, we did talk the night away, sometimes when I was so tired I couldn't stand it any more, and I thought we would finally go to sleep...then she'd say something else that popped into her head. Then I'd be awake again. But, I guess I didn't really care.
She was a very talented musician. She played piano and guitar...many different guitars. She taught herself. She was very patient, unlike me, who would get frustrated and bored and throw it down never to pick it up again...she used to make fun of me because even opening a pack of bologna was frustrating. Instead of opening at the end that said, 'Open', I'd rip the whole thing and then have to wrap it up in Saran Wrap because it wouldn't seal back up.
Anyway, we really became close and I have wonderful memories of sharing that room...I'd do the same thing all over again, and would not change a thing. I think people cheat themselves by having rooms of their own.
I don't think we even ever fought.
I'm not going to tell every single thing I remember about growing up with my sister, because that part isn't really the point. I do want to get into some of the later years, but it is important to lay the groundwork.
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She went to college in the fall of 1973. I was then alone in our room for the first time. It was different, that's for sure. Because it was the 'stone ages', there were no cell phones, and I didn't get to talk to her much except when she came home on some weekends. There were a few times that Mom and Dad went to visit relatives near her school, and I got to stay on campus with her for the weekend. Probably not a good idea, since I was 15. But, I survived it.
She finished her 3rd year of college, and then quit. Just quit. She'd met a guy there that had actually gone to high school in a neighboring town as us. And...she decided that she was going to marry him and 'have her own baby'. And, she did. She had 4 of her own babies, as a matter of fact.
But what happened to her in between having her babies was something nobody could have ever predicted.
In 1978 I married a good friend of her husband's. We met at their wedding, actually, in 1976, the same year I graduated from high school. The four of us were inseparable from then on. When she had her first baby, a girl, I was right there...then she had her second...a little boy. Soon after, it was my turn, and I had a baby boy.
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