MY SISTER PATTY and COOK THIS POEM

I’m posting two unrelated pieces of writing on the same day. Although I love brevity, sometimes I need to juxtapose two pieces to make a certain point. So, this first piece is about my sister’s death, and the second is about living. (And the second one is on a separate post.)

MY SISTER PATTY

…. liked to say, “Southerners are just like everybody else, only more so,” and I knew she was right, although I can’t quite articulate why. Partly it’s our reliance on humor.

            Patty died slowly, horrifically, and in her last month wore a diaper, twisted up in a specially designed wheelchair, with a feeding tube in her stomach. She was unable to speak, and, although her husband Roger put eyeglasses on her face every day, we were unsure if she could see. I had promised my little sister I would not let her life end like this, but it was a promise I was unable to keep. There are many worse things I could mention about this situation. For instance, at one point Patty screamed off and on for several weeks. Roger said he could hear her screaming when he got out of his car after work. But that was before he had to quit his job.

            When we were little, Patty and I took ballet classes together, and once we were in the same performance, skinny and flat-chested in our satin sequin costumes with their brief crinoline skirts.  Everybody loves Patty, our mother would say, and I did and still do. Patty was frail and tender-hearted, while I played baseball with the boys, yet I was close to her in ways that I still am, even now, sixteen years past her death.

By the last month I knew Patty was no longer in that body, and she knew it too, so I flew to Charleston to say goodbye to her. I had brought pictures of us when we were little, our autograph books, her high school yearbook, and other objects that held the energies of our childhood. I asked Roger to leave us alone and pulled a chair up close, so our faces were less than a foot apart. “Patty, I don’t know if you can see me, or if you can hear me, but I want you to remember all the wonderful things we did, all the joy in our childhood.” Then I went through each object, pulling up specific memories. “I’m afraid you’ll slip away when I’m not here, and I wanted to tell you how much I love you.” She was looking hard at me with one of her eyes. I know she saw me. “I don’t believe in goodbyes,” I said, “but I’m your big sister, so don’t be afraid. I promise I’ll come find you.”

She could not speak, but she spoke. I swear she said aloud, I love you.

Something in me relaxed in a deep place I can’t name.

“Do you remember,” I said, “when we danced in Cinderella in our funny little costumes?”

She nodded. I swear too, there was a nod. Also a trace of a goofy, goofy smile.

“And do you remember that time you called to tell me how you fell down outside of Burger King and then our mother fell down too, trying to help you? How you both just sat there on the pavement laughing? Everybody was trying to help you, but you just laughed and laughed.”

That was the last time I saw Patty or spoke to her, so this is a little tale about gracefulness, about my sister and me trying to twirl gracefully, like costumed children on a stage, through this most intense encounter of our lives.