When I first arrived on this planet, the person most like me, was, and remains my sister. At least in all those ways that sharing the same parents makes us similar.
As siblings often do, we have diverged quite a bit since. While I have seen a number of pictures of us as sweet children side by side, often in costumes for holidays (Easter, Halloween, Christmas, etc.) my memories are more often being the one waiting for her to vacate the bathroom we shared, or being in the fallout of some disharmony around her and my parent’s disagreements.
Or the influence of her peers, who I got to witness in depth, her being just over three years older than me. Lots of teen age girl behavior exposure didn’t really lead to my understanding it, but it certainly helped me avoid certain examples in my own peer groups.
The positive example was her diligence and accomplishment in academia (great student, clear goals and pursuit) and how she went out and did things. She picked becoming a cheerleader and then mastered what was required to do it. She wanted to go to dental school from junior high and she built the record and grades to qualify, and then she managed to get through it.
She is also the most dedicated athlete I have known, and that includes Olympians. Her addiction to endorphin is insufficient to explain her capacity to work out.
The other examples that she gave were more showing me where pitfalls were. She would try something, it would trigger our folks, so I had the benefit of knowing where some of the mines were in their pyschoscape, and was thus able to exercise my rebellion more under the radar.
As adults, we have also been distinctly different. We haven’t been close, geographically nor temporally. Yet I have always felt close even when she seemed to have no clue what was going on in my life. Go figure.
Like my parents, our closest moments have all been around threats to her health and well being, which has been a five year process that has included more general anesthetics than we can remember, lots of institutional time, and an amputation.
Her persistence and faith in the face of very high physical pain was remarkable and inspiring.
And her stubbornness in the face of demands to changes in her life, equal to it.
As it came to pass, my sister had not done enough to withstand the challenges of a life which took her into many operating rooms. Her athletic conditioning and stubborn spirit were undone by the grinding load of maintaining a body while juggling multiple threats in a society that doesn’t give even well prepared much slack.
Having just mastered walking on her prosthesis unaided, my sister succumbed to one of the infections she had picked up in hospital, and managed successfully multiple times previously. Am still processing her estate as I write this.
It took me a year to come around to the actual creating an event to mark her passing. We had an informal afternoon at the beach. A small group of folks came out and shared about the person we all knew in different circumstances, and who was remarkably consistent in all of the telling. At some point I will scan all the photos and put together a page about my sister, who remains one of the most fun, independent and adamant women I have known.