Marie at 1 Write Way

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte

October 7th, 2023
My oldest sister Charlotte would have been 79 today, October 7, if she had lived. She died on November 26, 2022.

Charlotte was my mother’s first baby.

My mom and Charlotte in December 1944

The first-born child of Florence.

She was a few months shy of 13 when I was born. Here she is with my brother sitting between her and our sister Shirley. I am, of course, the baby in the photo.

The four of us: Charlotte, my brother, Shirley and me.

Over the years, Charlotte blossomed into a beautiful young woman. I was often gobsmacked by her beauty. None of these photos have dates so the order is possibly random.

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My sisters Charlotte and Shirley took radically different paths from each other. Shirley married the man she first met when she was 16 and stayed happily content with him and their growing family until her last breath. Charlotte suffered through two failed marriages and then became a widow after six short years into her third marriage to a man who possibly loved her more than all the others that came before him. He also loved to sing as did she.

Charlotte being serenaded.

Charlotte had rheumatic fever when she was a young adult, leaving her with a weak heart. She was cautioned against having children because of it. According to one of my cousins, Charlotte had the fever during her first marriage, and it was our mother, not Charlotte’s husband, who got her medical care.

I often viewed Charlotte as a tragic figure, looking for love in the wrong places, struggling to support herself, pining for the children she could not have. She eventually found happiness in St. Petersburg, FL, which too quickly turned to grief, but through it all, she had friends who made her feel loved.

I failed at that. During the last several years, Charlotte and I shared a mutual dislike, due in no small part to our political differences. When my mother started spending winters with her, we would drive down from Tallahassee and visit, trying to be as pleasant as one could be with someone who didn’t welcome our presence. It hurts to remember those tense visits, the TV so loud that we could hardly converse, my sister quick to argue if I said something she didn’t like. I came away from one visit, the last one we had, feeling that my sister actually hated me.

We had had some good times together, times when we’d go out for a few drinks, long phone calls where she’d tell me stories about coworkers, the two-and-a-half weeks I stayed with her while she underwent heart valve replacement surgery. There was something about my sister that made you want to help her. I might have gone a bit overboard with that back then, helping her when she didn’t want or need it, and then feeling resentment it when she didn’t seem appreciative. That wasn’t fair of me.

Eventually our phone calls became shorter and farther between. I felt that the harder I tried to find common ground with Charlotte, the more I realized what little in common we had. It hurt. It hurt to call her and not be able to say something as simple as “How are you doing?” without her snapping back, “I’m fine. Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?” It hurt to think that the sound of my voice was enough to twist her mood into something ugly.

It hurt, but what hurts even more is that the last time we did talk on the phone, when she was in hospital because she couldn’t breathe on her own anymore, that last time I was so close to telling her I love her. The words were in my mouth, but I couldn’t say them. We had been so angry with each other for so long. Somehow I knew that by saying I love you, I’d be saying Good-bye. And I just couldn’t do that. I couldn’t admit that she was dying.
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She Was a Fine Specimen of a Lady: RIP Florence Reynolds (Bailey) Minch

September 23rd, 2023
My mom at 95.

Friday evening, at about 7 pm, I got “that call” from my brother. Our mother had died. Florence Reynolds (Bailey) Minch left us before seeing her 100th birthday which would have been on October 25. Many of us believe she wanted to be with her girls (her oldest daugthers, Shirley and Charlotte, who died in 2022) more than she wanted to see another birthday.

Last year, she had her annual exam. Her doctor pronounced her a “fine specimen of a woman.” She corrected him: “I’m a lady.” After that, I and other family members often referred to her as “a fine specimen of a lady.” Indeed, she was.

Several years ago I wrote about her and my aunt Edith who was dying from cancer at that time: Meditation on Life and Mom Near the end of that post, I wrote “it’s listening to her talk about her birds and squirrels and the occasional woodchuck that I’ll miss.”

Over the last few years, she became entranced by Baltimore Orioles, particularly the males since they have more striking plumage. In fact, during the last couple of phone calls we had before she broke her hip and went to hospital, she’d say, “I just want to see the Baltimore Oriole one more time.” I never asked what she meant by “one more time.” I chose to think that she meant they were migrating, and she wanted to see another one before they were gone for the winter.

This past week, our feeder was being visited by a female Baltimore Oriole. I couldn’t tell my mom because she had stopped taking phone calls. Her voice was too weak and the effort too tiring.

This morning, while fixing coffee, I saw a male Baltimore Oriole at the feeder. Maybe I should have felt sad that I could no longer tell Mom of my sightings, that I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her or ask someone to pass my message along. But I didn’t feel sad. I felt a surge of joy. One of my mom’s favorite birds was visiting my home. Coincidence? I think not.

My mother over the years.

Aunt Edith, Aunt Bea, my mom, Aunt Orvetta, Aunt Lee, Aunt Alice, and Aunt Mildred. My aunt Orvetta is the only one of the seven sisters left now.

My mom, teenaged me, and Aunt Alice (in red). Sometime in the mid-70s.

My mom with (perhaps?) Charlotte, her first-born.

My mom and dad when they were so young.

Mom.
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“closure is a term for real-estate deals, not for our loved ones”: Book review of Love in the Archives by Eileen Vorbach Collins

September 22nd, 2023
Warning: this book review discusses suicide.

“This is not about you.” So said her daughter Lydia’s therapist to Eileen. I approached this collection of essays by Eileen Vorbach Collins with that in mind. Her stories would not be about me.

And yet they were.

Eileen’s daughter Lydia–artist, writer, supernova–died by suicide in 1999. Ever since then, Eileen has been writing through and into her grief, trying to make sense of her fifteen-year-old daughter’s decision to end her life. I’ve known people who have committed suicide–a cousin, a friend–but they were adults in their 30s and 50s. Their deaths were tragic nonetheless and while I can understand a terminally ill person wanting to “leave” while they still have some quality of life, the suicide of otherwise healthy people leaves the living with too many questions, too much guilt, too much of everything but what we want most: that person back with us.

All daugthers are special, but Lydia seemed to have a gift to zero in on the essence of things, whether it be her uncanny ability to find four-leafed clovers where no one else could see them, or her acute horror at the loss of an innocent’s life, whether that innocent be a spider or a goldfish, or her fascination with odd objects: broken tiles, Pez dispensers, plastic rosary beads. She was an artist, a writer, a supernova. And, I guess, it all just became too much for her.

By the time you reached your teens, you could not see a silver lining through your darkness. (p. 71)

And yet, even if we could understand the why of suicide, would that lessen the pain? I think about my own contemplations of suicide, starting when I was in my teens and continuing periodically through adulthood, occurring often enough that I thought it was normal to consider suicide, to feel so low and with such despair that taking one’s own life seemed rational. That I’ve never attempted suicide is a testament to my fear of the unknown. There might be Purgatory.

Eventually I learned that suicide ideation is not a healthy activity, my first hint being the shock on my husband’s face when I told him about my thoughts.

So I read about Lydia with great interest, finding myself identifying with her in that we both experienced “Weltschmerz, literally, world pain” (p. 21), although it was far more acute for her than it ever was for me, and, for me, sometimes world pain was simply unbearable.

Although most of the essays are about Lydia and Eileen’s grief over her loss, she also writes about other losses: the loss of a beloved pooch, the lost opportunity to be a better daugther.

I didn’t know when I was ten and the center of my own universe that mothers have feelings. (p. 64)

Her essay, “Hold You Closer, Tiny Dancer,” left me feeling seen and heard. Eileen’s relationship with her mother, a woman who had suffered from depression, then strokes and suicide attempts, mirrored my own relationship with my father, who also had mental health problems. I don’t think he ever tried to kill himself which is surprising since he blamed himself for the Vietnam War and all the boys that were killed. I was ten when I first witnessed one of his nervous breakdowns. My father had feelings, but I was embarrassed by him. I didn’t have friends over when he was in-between stays at the state hospital, and I avoided him when I was home. I was “ten and the center of my own universe.” What kind of relationship would we have had if I’d only been kinder?

Eileen’s essays are not about me and yet they are. They are because she gives voice to my own grief, all the griefs I hold in my heart, whether it’s grief from euthanizing an old sick cat, grief from losing both my sisters, grief for not being a better daugther to my dad, or grief for my dying mother.

Eileen’s humor and honesty, her economy of words carried me through this collection. I’m grateful for the opportunity to get to know Lydia. I share Eileen’s grief that such a beautiful (body and soul) person is no longer with us, no longer sharing her gifts with the world. I’m also grateful to Eileen for letting me know that I’m not alone in when and how I grieve.

We’ve lost the filter that kept us behaving like normal people.

[…]

We might howl at the moon, tear our clothing, throw ourselves on their graves, starve ourselves, or use food as an opiate to soothe ourselves into obesity.

[…]

Or, if we find our way there, we might gather in communion. Feed one another, hold each other up, become the trusses to bear the unfathomable weight of this collective sorrow. (pp. 171-172)

Love in the Archives is scheduled for publication in November. You can pre-order your copy from Bookshop.org or Amazon.

Love in the Archives includes this list of resources:
- Alliance of Hope at https://allianceofhope.org
- American Foundation for Suicide Prevention at https://afsp.org
- Compassionate Friends at https://compassionatefriends.org
- National Suicide Prevention Hotline at https://988lifeline.org/talk-to-someone-now/
- Parents of Suicides at https://pos-ffos.com/groups/pos.htm
- The International Suicide Memorial Wall at https://www.suicidememorialwall.com
- Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program at https://yellow-ribbon.org/
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“Love speaks me entire, a word / of fur” — Marge Piercy

September 15th, 2023
At times like this, words don’t come easy. Thank goodness for poets. For the full poem, “The cat’s song,” go here.

Junior was euthanized at about 5:15 PM on Thursday, September 14, 2023. A clinical exam revealed that what we thought was a stubborn case of chronic rhinitis, was in fact a huge mass pushing aggressively through his nasal cavity, causing not just congestion but also swelling along his nose and pain. All options except one promised more suffering without any guarantee of relief.

My big boy was suffering big time, and the best we could do for him was help him over the Rainbow Bridge. At least he’ll be in good company with Maxine, Luisa, Mikey, Elodea, Joshua, and Smokey.

I’m going to miss … I am missing his sweet, sweet face, and his utter dependence on us. I miss how he would sit in the kitchen, an hour or so before lunch time, and wait for his midday meal. He was often underfoot in the kitchen, pushing me to scold him and even chase him out. Except he always slipped back in, his stubborness always making me give in to him.

I miss how he would join us for our meals, knowing that my husband could be counted on to slip him a bit of meat or cheese. I miss how he would lounge with us on the loveseat while we enjoyed a stay-at-home Happy Hour. I miss how fickle he was about which lap to lie on when we were watching TV, sometimes switching laps a couple of times over the course of a movie.

He entered our lives as a fully grown “neighborhood cat” around early 2009, Greg patiently earning his trust with kibbles and shelter. Fourteen years sounds like a long time, but it went by too fast.

Here’s a few of my favorite photos of Junior.

Back in the day when Junior had at least one tooth.

Junior toothless and showing off his long tongue.

Junior wasn’t much of a reader, but he did enjoy lying on top of magazines.

A winter routine was for Junior and Maxine to lie on my husband’s lap while he drank coffee and read. This particular morning, Junior decided my husband’s chest made a good perch.

Junior posing for a centerfold.

Keeping my toes warm on a cool March morning.

Junior loved heat, especially from the sun, to the point of trying to lick it.

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While I considered Junior to be my “big boy,” he was partial to Greg, inclined to go into full sleep mode while straddling his leg.

Going …

Going …

Gone.

I miss this sweet face.
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A Tale of Mothers and Cats

September 13th, 2023
When the going gets tough, I get my hair dyed. Here’s my latest do courtesy of Chelsea Salon and Spa.

A selfie I sent to my husband to give him a heads-up about my dye job.

So what’s so tough?

Firstly, about ten days ago my mother fell while on her way to bed. Broke her hip. My brother found her the next morning. Yes, folks, the scenario we all dread when our elderly relatives live alone. She is fine right now. She had a simple surgery and was in hospital for a couple of more days before they scurried her over to a rehabilitation facility. My family has a long history with this facility.

It’s the same facility where my sister Shirley spent a couple of months recovering from a broken ankle. Also, a long, long time ago and known then only as “the infirmary,” it’s the same place where my father was cared for until his death. And it’s the same place where my surrogate grandfather Ted Albers was cared for until his death. It’s now called River Ridge Living Center.

My mother is in a safe place. She’s not quite the happy camper, but her see-saw moods could be post-anesthesia blues or side effects of morphine or the realization that her days of independent living are over. My brother visits her a couple of times a day, other family are there frequently, pretty much the same or more as when she was living in her trailer, but now we have the benefit of knowing that she is getting the kind of care she has needed (and resisted) for a long time.

I am hoping and praying that she relaxes into her new life at River Ridge. Even before her fall, she was already living in the “here and now.” She wouldn’t remember what happened yesterday or maybe even a hour before. She can’t conceive of the future. If you try to tell her about something that will happen the next day, she’ll just shake her head and tell you she won’t remember that.

So my brother (her primary caregiver) is doing all he can to make sure that all her needs are being met and will continue to be met. I don’t believe she will or even should go home again, not without 24/7 care which she can only get properly at River Ridge. I said as much to my brother, and it wasn’t easy. I’ve never wanted my mom to wind up in a facility, but it’s really the best place for her now. She has said she is being treated well, and that gives me hope that she’ll become more comfortable with the place as time goes on. I’ve only talked to her a couple of times. Talking on the phone tires her out quickly. I miss our daily phone calls, but as long as others are there with her, I’m okay.

Secondly, Junior’s chronic condition has worsened. He was getting better, but then the lining of his left nostril became swollen and inflamed. With Dr. C’s permission, I started giving him steroid nose drops again, but with no appreciable improvement. Worse, he stopped eating on Tuesday. He had been getting picky with his food over time, preferring dry food to the wet, then treats to the regular dry, and then skipping meals altogether.

His left nostril is congested. We suspect he stopped eating because he can’t smell his food or the congestion makes his food unappetizing or both. We have used a baby aspirator to suck some of the snot out of his nose, but apparently not enough to give him comfort. I take him into the bathroom with me when I shower, hoping the steam will loosen the mucous up. The problem is that he’s not sneezing, not expelling the mucous himself, and our efforts at aspiration are probably too little too late. I’m angry with myself for not scheduling a recheck, instead waiting until we were in panic mode.

In the meantime, my husband devised a system where we essentially force-feed him using a syringe and pureed wet food. We’ve done this successfully a few times now, although all of us wind up with squirts of cat food on our hair and fur.

His appointment with Dr. C is a drop-off, meaning I drop him off at the hospital in the early morning and then wait to hear from Dr. C. I try to avoid drop-offs because I don’t like leaving my cats at the hospital all day (separation anxiety), but this is the earliest we could get him in.

So stay tuned and thank you for reading! Here’s a few pics of Junior from this morning, obviously taken against his will.

“You know I don’t like to have my picture taken.”

“I was just lying here, minding my own business.”

“You really won’t go away, will you?”

“Knock it off, Mom!”
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All’s Well, Especially When Your Cats Are Medicated

August 30th, 2023
To quote my recent Facebook post: Hurricane Idalia made landfall this morning, a bit further south than expected. Good for us, not good for others. We feel very lucky. However, we don’t have power so I’ll be turning my phone off soon 🙂 Just wanted to give you all an update.

You know, it really wonderful to have so many people care that I worry about running down the battery on my phone 😉😊❤️
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Interruption of Irregular Programming

August 29th, 2023
Some of you may be following Hurricane Idalia. She’s shaping up (and over) to be the first major hurricane to hit the Big Bend area of Florida, where we live. In fact, weather experts are calling it an “unprecedented event.” Tallahassee is a band or two out from the purple in the image below, but close enough in that we are under a hurricane warning.

Thankfully, we live far enough inland that storm surges will not be a problem for us personally. But wind will be.

Am I scared? Yes.

We prepped as much as we can, but I’ve never ridden out a hurricane of this magnitude before so I can only hope we’ve done enough. The cats will be getting anti-anxiety meds with their evening meal to keep them from bouncing off the walls.

Last I heard Idalia should make landfall in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, so I guess I won’t be getting any sleep.

We’ll hunker down and hope that our little piece of property won’t get too torn up. I don’t expect miracles. I do hope this will not be a new normal for Florida. If we had wanted to ride out hurricanes, we would have moved to South Florida or the coast when we came here.

I used to joke that, thanks to climate change, we might eventually have beach front property without ever moving. We’ll see if I still have a sense of humor tomorrow.

Although I’ve been more absent than present on my blog over the last few months, I felt I should come on and say something about Hurricane Idalia. If I’m able to (depending on power outages, of course), I will do what I can to update this post once the wind has settled. That’s one good thing about Idalia, I guess. She’s supposed to move through fast.

See you on the other side of the hurricane!

If we live here long enough, Raji might get to enjoy a blue bayou right outside our door.
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A Tale of Two Micro-fictions

August 27th, 2023
Last time you all saw me here, I shared a recently published micro-story of mine from Flash Fiction Friday. My submission had to be 100 words or less. I “complained” that a longer version of the story was better. But now I’m not sure if either version is particularly good. You be the judge because that’s what readers do.

Original, 147-word version, untitled:

The dinner party was in full swing. Six women sat around the small table with glasses of wine and plates dirty with scrapes of spaghetti. Megan, the seventh woman, sat at the end of the table, blocked by her best friend. Megan watched as her hands became translucent. Conversation revolved around when Dawn and her friends were in college, long before Megan met Dawn at work and latched onto her as one would a lifesaver.

Dawn had wanted to come to this party, see her old friends, but wouldn’t come without Megan. “I’ll go if you go,” she said. “I don’t want to go alone.”

Megan watched as her hands, arms, and body slowly disappeared, replaced by quivering energy. She rose, the women deep in reminiscences of bygone camping trips, walked through them, the women twitching only a little as she passed by and out the front door.

The edited, 100-word version at Flash Fiction Friday is here: Invisible.

Update on Junior: First, he’s fine. But earlier in the week he seemed to take a turn for the worse with lethargy and copious discharges from his nose. When he turned away from his breakfast on Wednesday, I called the hospital, in a bit of a panic and ~~demanded~~ asked if he could see Dr. C as soon as possible. Dr. C is Junior’s primary vet; she knows him well. The new vet, nil. We got an appointment for the next morning, and I elected to stop the stereroidal nosedrops. I mean, if he’s having worse symptoms after two+ weeks, then surely the medication is not helping. He slept most of the day and by evening was starting to eat again. Plus the nasal discharge had slowed.

We love Dr. C. She’s bright and bubbly, doesn’t shy away from talking about tough issues but doesn’t jump to conclusions either. She did a nasal swab and ordered a culture (we’re still waiting for results). Generally, though, she suspects Junior is just one of those kitties that develops chronic rhinusitis that will sometimes respond to treatment and sometimes won’t. The condition is not life threatening, but is something to stay on top of.

While Dr. C had Junior in the back of the clinic for the nasal swab, she took advantage of the fact that he has no teeth and stuck her finger in his mouth to palpate his soft palate for a tumor. Nothing. Then she took a bulb syringe and sucked a bunch of snot out of his nose. She showed us his snot.

We love Dr. C.

While we’re waiting on the culture results, we have him on antihistamines again. Aside from a super cruddy nose in the morning, which I clean up with wet paper towels and Q-tips, you wouldn’t know anything was amiss with Junior.

My green-eyed boy.

On Instagram recently, I shared a couple of photos of butterfly larvae that’s taken residence in our passionflower vine. We’ve counted at least 11 of these critters. We’re excited that we might truly have our own “butterfly garden” soon.

More butterfly larvae

Butterfly larvae

It wasn’t easy but I also managed to film a Gulf Fritillary flitting around the passionflower vine. This is what the larvae should develop into.

Other than stressing out over Junior and taking photographs, I’ve been weaving a scarf on my new toy: an Ashford Knitter’s Loom. It will be a long while before I share any photos of that adventure. My husband is impressed with the result but, to be honest, I almost ruined the project before I even started it. I remembered why I eventually gave up weaving. Some of the work is tedious and involves … math. But weaving by itself is a joy and worth the tedium of warping and angst of math.

Thank you for reading! Here’s a photo of Raji from this morning in his favorite sleeping pose … except here he is giving me the stink-eye for waking him.

Raji and his rabbit feet.
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Flowers, Potholders, and Cats

August 16th, 2023
Flowers, potholders, and cats are three of my favorite things. Well, cats will always be at the top of my favorites, but flowers and potholders are running close.

The past couple of weeks have been like the previous weeks, so-so with an occasional meltdown. Sure, I’m still grieving, but I do get tired of it. I have so much to do and not as much time left (and less every day, of course), so I get impatient with myself. I enjoy being creative, but I often hold back because I can’t share my creativity with my sisters, especially Shirley.

Every time I think I’ve rounded a corner, find myself practically skipping with glee over the flowers blooming in our garden, some time later I’ll again find myself in a deep gloom. The heat hasn’t helped. Today (this morning) is the first time in weeks that I didn’t feel like I was being scalded when I stepped outside. And yet, I am so lucky to be here and not Maui or Phoenix (sorry, Luanne). I could be luckier and be in upstate NY or (preferably) the West Coast, but best to count my blessings and not push my luck.

Reading and book reviews are high on my list of things I must do. The reading is ongoing, the book reviews are in my head. Right now I’m reading an advanced copy of Love in the Archives by Eileen Vorbach Collins, a compilation of essays about the loss of Collins’s teenage daughter Lydia to suicide. I’ve read some of these essays before, but Collins’s writing is such that I always find something new in her words, her insight, her humor, and her heart. Collins’s words stitch together a delicate balance between horror and humor–not laugh-out-loud humor, knee-slapping humor–but that wry, dry, honest humor that comes with living with grief. Her words make me cry and yet they are a balm. Love in the Archives will be published in October but you can preorder a copy at Amazon or (my preference) Bookshop.org.

In the meantime …

I have been enjoying the amazing blooms in our garden. These are flowers I’ve often admired elsewhere, never thinking I would ever enjoy them in my own backyard.

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I also managed to make a number of potholders and “mug rugs” or coasters in the past two weeks. The lavender and silver potholders came out of a kit I bought from Acorns & Twigs, a small family business that offers a huge assortment of crafty things. I used rectangular rings for the end loops because I could not find circular ones (seriously, I checked both Joann’s and Michael’s and only found ugly plastic rings). I like how these look, though.

Lavender and silver potholders.

This next collection was made with wool loops from Carol Leigh’s Hillcreek Fiber Studio. Carol uses natural dyes with the wool loops so the colors have slight variations, making the designs look that much more interesting and attractive. Hillcreek is another family-run business, and the only one I know of that offers wool loops for weaving. Cotton loops are easy to care for: I machine-wash mine and then air-dry them, but I could probably machine-dry on a low setting. The wool requires handwashing, but I love the feel and weight of these potholders and mug rugs. Usually, I weave in the last loop, but I wasn’t able to do that effectively with the mug rugs so I used buttons to finish them.

Four mug rugs in color combination of reds, pinks, blues, and purples.

Close-up of mug rug in colors of reds, pinks, blues, and purples.

Two potholders in a color combination of light blue, reds, pinks, and purples.

Finally … cats.

Here’s Raji in his favorite sleeping position.

Raji in full sleeping mode.

Junior has been causing us a bit of a concern lately. His left nostril has something blocking the opening. You can barely see it in this picture.

Junior wondering why I’m taking his photo when he would rather eat.

The bad news is we don’t know what it is, and it’s response to steroid nose drops has been so-so. Sometimes it seems to shrink, sometimes not. A few weeks ago, the mucus was tinged with blood, so we made an urgent visit to the clinic, and, for the time being, we’re now stuck with a newbie vet. He’s a very nice, young man, but he didn’t waste time in suggesting that Junior might have a tumor pushing through his nasal cavity aka cancer. Of course, tests would need to be done, but we’re holding off for now.

Junior is at least 15 years old, more likely 16, and we really don’t want to put him through a lot of poking and prodding, anesthesia and complications. At his last recheck, he did show signs of improvement so we’ll have another recheck in a couple of weeks. The good news is, other than the nose-thingy, he’s well. He’s always early for his meals, eats everything, and is generally alert and affilitative. Yes, he sleeps alot but who wouldn’t in this heat, and he is 16, fairly close to my mom’s age. So, we’re putting off the big conversation for now. Fingers crossed the steroids work their magic.

And now truly finally, I have a 100-word story up at Friday Flash Fiction, titled Invisible. Interesting thing about this story. I worked a much longer version for a SmokeLong Quarterly Community Workshop, then pared it down to about 150 words for a workshop with Meg Pokrass, and then further edited for Friday Flash Fiction to fit their 100-word limit. To be honest, I think I should have stuck with the 150-word version. Que sera sera.

Thank you for reading!
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Thinking of My Sister on Her Birthday

August 2nd, 2023
Today–August 2–is my sister Shirley’s 77th birthday. If she were still with us.

I wrote this micro memoir a few months ago.

Sister

It wasn’t that hot, not that day. But a line of white crusted her open mouth, and the white hair capping her head was damp with sweat. She leaned sideways as if she would fall out from the passenger seat. I reached out to her, but she waved me off, holding onto the car door as she pivoted on the seat. I held down my scream as she jerked her body up and out of the car. A puppet missing a few strings, she was no longer its master.

I hovered behind her, torn between rushing up to her, making her take my arm, and running away, getting back in my own car, and flying south, away from the sight of her decline, away to my old photos of her when she was a teenager, holding me on her lap; or a young bride beaming next to her equally young husband; or the farmer’s wife, posing for the local newspaper with her husband and three boys; or a contented grandmother, toddlers on either side of her, intent on the book she was reading to them.

She walked through her house, me and our husbands close behind, but not so close to make her angry. She picked up one, then another of the shawls I had knitted for her. Purple, gray, and brown lacey patterns draped over the backs of chairs, ready for when she felt a chill or when she wanted to feel the love that grew within me as I ran to catch up and close the gap of 11 years between us.

When she called several years ago and told me she had Parkinson’s, I felt time fall away. I couldn’t be that mysterious hobo of a little sister anymore, a role I luxuriated in, so different from her openly traditional wife-and-mother. My heart ran ahead of me, trying to make up for the years when I was too busy living my own life, never realizing we couldn’t run fast enough.

My sister doing what she loved most. Here she is holding a relative’s baby. She wrote: “Lousy picture of me, but at least the baby is good.”
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