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To Walk In Her Shoes

Monday, March 31st, 2008

The last few days have been very rewarding for me.  I normally am the one who finds the glass half full.  I am the one who likes to see smiles on everyone’s face.  It hasn’t been real easy the past almost 6 months.  Things changed for me drastically on October 6th, 2007. 

My sister, best friend and guardian angel passed away.  We were very close.  As children we were never parted.  We did everything together.  I don’t think that we either one had another best friend until we both went into highschool.  We played with other children, but the two of us seemed to live a life of our own.  We neither one needed anyone else in our lives to be happy. 

There were a few differences between the two of us. She was 17 months older, she had real curly blonde hair and the biggest blue eyes and her smile was so bright.  When she smiled it just lite up her whole face.  I was brown headed, my hair was very straight and I had green eyes.  The priest at the Catholic Church always stopped the two of us and told us that our smiles were God’s gift to the people.   He and everyone else always asked if we were twins.  We thought that was so very funny.  We kind of looked alike if you looked at our faces, maybe.  Our smiles were about the same our eyes the same except for the color.  But until we were older and looked back on the pictures of our youth it was then that we could see how much we really did look alike, in some you could see the same similarities, there too were pictures where you could see we each had our own looks .   But with age we also realized there was more to us than just looking alike.  We both had the same demeanor, temperament, the way we walked, talked and even sat was like we mirrored each other.  Our thought process and  how we would answer a question, how we would react was almost identical. 

I wasn’t there for her when she was told she had a very rare liver cancer.  But I could feel her pain when she told me on the phone, and I knew that I was feeling that same pain.  It was then that I realized there was something else we differed about.  She didn’t want to know the prognosis, I had to know.  When I found out it so numbed me it was very hard to talk with her on the phone.  I couldn’t let her know in anyway what I knew.  She made it very clear she just didn’t want to know.  I wanted to ask her didn’t she feel if she knew then she could make better decisions for what treatment she should have or where she could go for the treatment.  I hinted at maybe looking into some trails for her type of liver cancer.  But she just didn’t want to know.

I live in Washington State, she lived in Georgia.  I wanted so badly to go to her and just be with her.  But I couldn’t.  I have a few medical problems that prevent me from traveling right now.  All I could do was just listen, love, cry and laugh with her.  She told me just before Christmas of 2006 about her cancer and then I surfed and found out what she truly had, I contacted several of my specialist who told me who to contact.  They were told to tell me everything,  she does better knowing all the details.  I sometimes wonder if I had to do it all over again would I want to know everything they told me?  Yes.  I couldn’t help her by telling her what she needed to do or that her time was fast approaching.  All I could do was talk with her.  We did allot of talking about our youth.  We talked endless hours about our children.  She had three boys.  I have 3 boys and my baby was a girl.  She had always wanted a girl.   July 5th she got her girl, a baby granddaughter.  Her little girl at last.   She only had three months minus a day to hold her.  She held her everytime she could.  She loved her three grandbabies.  I just wished they could have been older to remember her.  What I wanted more than anything was that she could have years to live, not months.

I just let her lead the conversations where ever it was she wanted to go.  I remember talking on the phone with her almost everyday.  We had so many good laughs, they will have to last a life time now.  I hope that she never knew how many times I was having the quite secret cries, the ones where the tears just don’t stop.  But it had to be the Lord’s strenght that I could keep my voice normal.  The day she called me to tell me she had gone to the funeral home and planned out her funeral, she had picked out her casket and did everything on her list.  It was all taken care of, she left one thing that she said she would do when it time.   I was so taken back.  She made the comment that she hoped she wouldn’t need them for five years.  It was so like her to do that.  I knew immediately why. One she didn’t want anyone else to have to do this, she didn’t want to burden her husband of thirty some years, she definitely didn’t want anyone of her three boys doing it.  I know too, she would want to have it done her way.  She made sure she covered all the bases in one early afternoon.  I could tell by her voice she needed to get this done, and the sooner the better.  She used her enter strenght and did what she felt she had to do.  It was done and now no one would have to face this inevitable task.  I wondered as she was telling me about what she had done, did we share the same enter strenght.  I think we do.  I know that I would do as she did for the same reasons.  The only difference I would know what I had and how long I would have to do all the things I hadn’t gotten too.  But I haven’t faced what she was facing.  I guess until you walk in another person’s shoes how would you react.  It’s just like me needing to know everything, I think that is the best defense.  She didn’t.  Maybe her soul knew and didn’t want to go in that direction.  Just live each day as they came and she did have a very strong positive attitude.  I guess I would too if I didn’t know what I knew.

I was looking for the Patient’s Bill of Rights when I happened onto this site.  I started reading different profiles.  I started reading different journals.  I hadn’t laughed since her passing.   I found through one of the member’s journals while reading them I started to laugh.  It was the first time since her passing, at first I felt strange, I was laughing and then I could actually feel the laughter in my soul for the first time since Jacquie passed.   It felt so good to be laughing again.  I know Jacquie wouldn’t have wanted me to mourn her as I did, but I don’t know how else to let a person that is such a part of you go.  It took that time, and it took taking the time to read the different profiles and  journals in this community to help me finally get over that first hurdle.  I wonder how many more hurdles are on my track in this lifetime. 

I never quite understood why people would write personal things on the web for all to see.  I now have a totally different prespective on that.  Now I know.  You don’t know who will read it and how it could help someone else.  I let the person who’s journals I read that got my laughter going know about my dear sister, and what his words had done for me.   That person doesn’t know what a Blessing he truly is.  Without my laughter in my life and not having my sister anymore, things could and probably would have been much different.  I know they would have been decidedly different.  I needed my laughter again to survive.  I now know that I will gain the strenght I need.  I now realize that I will keep a journal and will continue to write about the different adventures that Jacquie and I had over the years. 

Towards the end she did know her time was coming to a close.  She did that final deed she had left for the right time.  She wrote her own abituary.  She took care of eveything.  She left nothing undone. 

She’s not here bodily but her spirit lives on.  I want for her boys and her grandchildren and even future grandchildren to know who she was and what made her the way she was.  When I had to tell my children their Aunt Jacquie passed, for them it was loosing there 2nd Mother.  We all shared so much.  We all cared even more!

RaeDi 

"Anna’s Winter Watch"