Sisters Once Again

Although it is usual for my sister Patty and I to disagree, her illness has made such breaks in communication and affection all the more difficult to cope with. This made hearing her voice on the other end of the telephone line all the more important the other day. She was finally ready to talk and to listen and we were able to clear up the difficulties that have kept us seperate for these last several weeks in a matter of minutes. For the first time I was also able to tell her how all of the stuff her battles with leukemia have seemed to me. I told her how my being the oldest of the four of us has always made me feel a sort of protectiveness toward her and our other sister and brother, how I have always found myself defending them from babysitters, parents, and once even from the police. I cried as I told her how hard it has been to see her going through all of this, that I do not want to lose her, and how worried I have been about her children, my only niece and nephew. I told her how I would gladly go to the very ends of the earth to try to help her get through this and I told her how very much I love her. Patty listened to me and then told me that she is not doing very well right now, that her lungs have been damaged by the chemo and radiation and that she may not be able to have the full bone marrow transplant procedure because of it. She told me how difficult it is for her to just get a chore done or walk around the house a little without becoming short of breath and that she now has to carry oxygen with her where ever she goes. She told me that they might have to do the transplant in a way that is not as effective because the full body radiation would damage her lungs even more and that the longer they had to wait for her lungs to heal and function better, the more of a foothold the leukemia will have and that that might also prevent her from having the transplant. She said she might die. I never knew until now how happy and how heartbroken you could be at one time. I do not want to have to say good-bye to my younger sister, but nature may leave us no choice except to continue reminding each other how very much we love one another until there is no more time left to say such things. Oh God! Why Patty? Why the only one of us to have children? Why not me - I'm the oldest? How a mother must feel when she has to watch a child suffer and die while standing there helpless must be at least something like being an older sister watching her younger sister do the same. Patty, if I knew I had fifty or sixty years left to live and I could somehow give some of them to you, half would have been yours in a heartbeat. If I could somehow discover in time the way to lay hands on you and heal you, it would already be done. And if heartfelt prayers and tears can wrest anything from the grip of God and Heaven you will get better.

I am on a quest that may seem foolish to some. It involves reading books about things I have always cast a suspicious eye on before, trying to find a way to get water from Lourdes so we can toast your health together even if it ends up being only symbolic of sisterly love, trying to find hope where medicine has failed to give any, and trying to make love into such a solid and tangible thing you cannot help but be healed.

I am your older sister. I may not be able to do more than that, but I certainly cannot do any less.