the dead don't age

Today my sister should have turned 39 years old. I am not sure we would have celebrated together. That hope died with her.

This week is a hard one. Our father's birthday is exactly a week before my sister's. It was made even harder this year as B's 23-year old cousin died on Tuesday. He was found unconscious in his apartment and was stabilized at the hospital, but still unconscious. Then he had a seizure and left this world.

He was studying to be a race car mechanic. I never met him, but it still makes my soul ache for the grief that I know his family, especially his siblings are feeling. The loss of a sibling is something so rarely discussed. If the parents are still living, their grief is certainly deemed greater. If the sibling had a spouse or children, again, these loses seem bigger. It is easy for a sibling to get overlooked despite that the connection of brothers and sisters is true and real.

But rather than focus on all the grief and sadness, I will share this (kind of) funny story:

When we still lived downstairs from our grandparents, our grandmother decided that my sister and I would get our birthday presents together, despite that my birthday was back in March. She took me aside and told me that my sister (a year younger) just wasn't good at seeing me get presents. Thus my grandmother thought it best to just present us with our birthday presents at the same time. (I did get flowers delivered to me on my birthday which was quite a treat.)

The gift issue wasn't a new concept. Alice just didn't like to share. At Christmas, our grandmother gave us two of exactly the same thing. Even if my grandmother got us a board game, she got us two of the exact game. Yes, even if it required two people to play. It was kind of silly and seemed a bit counterproductive - as her sister, I realized Alice needed to learn how to share more gracefully. Still, our grandmother did what she did to help keep the peace.

To make up for my having to wait, I did have some say in things. For our 6th & 7th birthdays, we got new bikes - our first two wheelers. Around my birthday we went to the bike shop to pick them out. Of course, they had to be identical because my grandmother feared that Alice would get jealous somehow if they weren't. We ended up with yellow bikes with banana seats that were covered in a flower print. I know those seats had to be my idea. They had matching baskets, horns and orange flags on the back (for safety). They also had training wheels.

They were great bicycles. Very well made. They eventually were shipped to the West Coast when we moved. I rode mine to school two miles each way in sixth, seventh, and most of eighth grade (until I got a red ten-speed and shortly thereafter was hit by a car when riding it)^*. Some kids made fun of us because of the crazy seats, but they were one of the few things we had that connected us to our grandmother 3000 miles away. She refused to fly, so we only saw her in the summers when visitation clauses in our parents' divorce documents forced us to that city again.

Of course now I realize that part of the reason we had to wait until June was money related. I didn't quite understand the concept of lay away at seven. Still, it is true that my grandmother went out of her way to attempt to keep Alice's jealousy gremlins at bay. I don't know that she was ever good at sharing, but these are things sisters just accept about each other.

I miss my sister in ways I can't explain. In my mind she will always be a skinny blonde haired girl who liked mayonnaise sandwiches and dancing in the rain.

^* I was fine, although I had hit my face with the street pretty hard. I looked like Frankenstein for several weeks, but it didn't keep me out of school or from competing at a cheerleading competition. I called my best friend upon returning from the ER and just announced that I had been hit by a car (without thinking). She freaked out until I told her I would see her at school the next day.


on the night stand :: Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir