My Sister's Love Story

Most of my memories are big, loud, elaborate affairs that come barreling across my mind like a loaded dump truck on a gravel road.  But, there is a memory that flutters into my senses so softly, so quietly, I’m not sure if it is real or a wonderful dream.  Such memories are as sweet and comforting as Blackburn Syrup on a hot buttered biscuit in the dead of winter. 

On a cool, clear morning in the summer of 1997, I got a glimpse into the heart of my sister.  It is a memory that comes back to me often.  Like an old reel-to-reel tape player, I replay the scene in my mind over and over, as if savoring each second will keep it tattooed onto my heart forever.

I wake up slowly, rising up through the layers of sleep like a scuba diver coming up for air.  With no blasting alarm clock or whining dog waiting to be taken out for a morning walk, I take the leisurely route to waking up that is reserved only for vacation mornings. The early morning sunlight is dancing across the heavy quilt that is appreciated on a cool mountain night but kicked to the bottom of the bed at the first hint of a summer morning.  I lay there thinking that I am the only one of our vacation party awake at such an early hour until I smell the heavenly aroma of coffee brewing in the kitchen of our Smokey Mountain cabin.  I quietly roll off the very edge of the bed and reach back to cover up my three year old son who is spread across the bed, arms thrown up over his head, legs sprayed across most of the bed, as wide open to the world in sleep as he is fully awake.  He always starts out as a big boy sleeping in his own bed, but ends up “sharing” mom and dad’s bed, forcing both of his parents to opposite edges of the mattress.  Dennis and I have learned to sleep perched on the edge of the bed like old hoot owls clinging to the tip of a branch.  I look at Drew, my precious son, in his Buzz Lightyear PJ’s, his light brown hair going this way and that, his soft, sweet baby breath whistling through his slightly stuffy nose and I marvel, once again, on how I could be so very blessed.

It was the summer of 1997 and my sister, Gail, asked us to join her family on a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  We had never vacationed together before, so we were both eager to spend that time together with our families.  My baby sister and I had not always been best of friends.  As the oldest child of four children, I always thought it my responsibility to “take care” of my siblings – which often resulted in me being the bossy and opinionated big sister.  When we reached our teens, Gail decided that she did not appreciate her sister telling her every move to make.  We were very close to the same age, but we could not have been more different.   While I was serious, studious, obedient and a book worm, Gail was outgoing, rebellious and, let’s face it, a lot more fun than her older sister.  I wanted to become an award- winning writer, work for a big-city newspaper, make millions of dollars and get as far away from my little hometown of Senatobia, Mississippi as possible.  Gail wanted a family, a nice little home in Senatobia, maybe a part-time job as her children got older.  She wanted a yard full of flowers, Saturday night steak dinners and the PTA.  Most of all, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the man of her dreams.  She eventually achieved all those goals.

During our 20’s and 30’s, while I was climbing the corporate ladder, driving cool cars and wearing designer clothes, my sister was having her babies, buying her first home and taking care of her family.  She married her high school sweetheart within two weeks of graduating from high school and had her first child a couple of years later.

She and I stayed in touch but really did not have much in common during those years.  I was too busy with work and she was busy with her husband and children.

In 1992, at the age of 35, I was pregnant with my first child.  By then, Gail was an old pro at all things motherly and I soon learned that my sister was the smartest person I knew.  For nine months, I called her every single week to ask her about the weird things going on with my body.  She laughed at me, but was very patient and understanding about my hysteria.  Once when someone hurt my feelings during an unusually hormonal day, she sat with me in my mother’s tiny bathroom - me on the toilet and her on the side of the tub – for over an hour until my hiccuping tears finally dried.

After Drew was born, Gail became my own personal Dr. Spock.  I called her every day to get her advice about something – was Drew going to the bathroom too much or not enough?  Should I feed him rice cereal now or wait until the books said to do it?  Shouldn’t he have teeth by now?

“Is nine months too early for Drew to walk?” I once asked her.

“If you saw him walking, it must not be,” she quipped.  

Drew’s first birthday party was at Gail’s little ranch style house in Senatobia.  She made hamburgers and hot dogs and she let Drew put his hands all in his cake and make a big mess.  My sister loved my child about as much as she loved her own.  Her house was filled with kids, dogs, food and love.  It was just her nature.  It was who she was.  I was just figuring that out.  She had known it all along.

So, in June of 1997, we loaded up a small convoy of kids and food and headed to the mountains for our first ever vacation together.  It was a week of adventure, laughter, and family time.  We sat in chairs on the cabin’s large deck and talked about our childhood, enjoying the amazing views, mountain air and each other. 

On this special vacation morning, I tip-toe out of the second story bedroom of the mountain-side cabin, to have coffee with my sister before the rest of our group got up.   I close the bedroom door as quietly as possible and peek over the balcony into the kitchen below.  I see my sister standing at the kitchen counter in her husband’s extra-large t-shirt, her curly blond hair making a halo above her tiny face.  Just as I am about to whisper good morning, I see her husband come into the kitchen and slip his arms around her.  Standing just under 5 feet, my little sister nearly disappears into her husband’s embrace as she turns her head around and up to give him a kiss.  Like teenagers in love, they are giggling and whispering and stealing kisses like there is no one else in the world.  At that moment, I think of when they were dating.  She was still in high school and he had a job working until 10 pm.  He would come by our house and blow his car horn – once for “Hello” and three times for “I love you.”  A few minutes later I would hear the phone in our bedroom ring – actually, half a ring so it would not wake up our parents - and she would take the phone under the bed covers and whisper and giggle with him for hours.

I smile and quietly slip back into my bedroom and never let them know that I have seen this amazing testimony to true love and devotion.  I am so very blessed to have witnessed this moment; a few seconds that become more and more precious to me as the years go by.

That fall, I unexpectedly lost my little sister to a heart attack.  Looking back, I now know that brief look into my sister’s life was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.  God opened the blinds and allowed me to see inside the heart of my sister.  On an early morning, in a little log cabin on the side of a mountain, I witnessed the love story that was my sister’s life.  Not a fairy tale, mind you, but a real life filled with hard times and disappointments, triumphs and victories.  Children, a mortgage, car payments, disagreements.  A yard filled with flowers and Saturday night dinner dates and pre-dawn rendezvous in the kitchen.  Laughter and hugs and kisses.  

A life that was way too short, but filled to the brim with love.

Always love.