Happy Birthday Bonnie

My sister will be 59 this month. I was looking in the drug store for a really silly, funny birthday card to get for her, because I usually get her something to get a giggle out of her. I finally settled on a Mr. Potato-head card with something about detachable parts.

I laughed a little and bought the card, along with the usual drug store things I don’t need but must have. I will take it home and write in it how much I love her and miss her, and I will send it off to be opened by my brother in law, who will sit beside her bed and read all her happy birthday wishes to her. She will look at him, with her big blue eyes and may or may not comprehend that it is her birthday, or that she has numerous friends and family who love her and have sent her cards and Happy Birthday wishes on Facebook. If she does know, she will not be able to respond verbally, or even with a gesture. You see, since last year, she has been in a semi vegetative state , the victim of a debilitating brain aneurysm and a series of strokes which left her that way

She will not laugh, or giggle or immediately call me on the phone as she used to, because she can’t do that anymore . We won’t be able to talk about her summer plans and her most likely fabulous 4th of July menu for her family in her town home. She is not able to talk to me about the wonderful things my niece and nephews have done recently, and we are unable to have a discussion on what our parents have been up to.

She cannot do those things anymore.

When we were kids, I remember having knock down drag out fights with her. I always had though she was such a goody two shoes, and a super high achiever whose shoes I could never fill. As girls I could never live up to her accomplishments…. I was just an average. kid, no better or worse than any other kid in our average, middle class suburban neighborhood in Texas.

When she was a child, Bonnie was absolutely angelic. She had lovely , thick brown hair and was in possession of these beautiful long eyelashes that lay halfway down her cheeks when she closed her eyes. She was thin and always perfectly dressed and coiffed somehow, even as I managed always to come in as a chubby second…..second because, well, there were only two of us….and because “second” sounds better than “last place”. There I was with a gap between my front teeth, an unfortunate cowlick at the front of my hairline, a skinned knee and a dirty shirt from playing with our dog. When I was born, our mother thought I was a boy when I came out (before they saw the other end) because I was completely bald and had linebacker shoulders, unlike my beautiful , dainty older sister.

Bonnie played piano beautifully and excelled at the recitals she would attend. She was in the German club and scored the coveted first chair trumpet in the band for a time. She became the first female Drum Major our high school band had ever had. It was thrilling to see this tiny little girl in a green and silver shiny suit with a big furry hat leading a huge marching band. After graduating from college, she went on to become a flight attendant for Pan Am….at the time, one of the world’s premier airlines. Bonnie kicked ass at whatever she set out to do!

She went on to achieve a second degree in Horticultural management, and after Pan Am closed its doors, she became an arborist, becoming very well respected in Virginia. She became a vegan chef and a master cook in the kitchen. She knew her herbs, both culinary and medicinal, and always said if the Zombie Apocalypse were to occur, you would want her along, because she could survive in the woods. Another reason I wanted to live closer to her..

Because Zombies…you never know !

Although we fought like cats and dogs as children, Bonnie was always my biggest cheerleader and defender. I remember when we were kids, some neighborhood bully was picking on me at the playground, and she went over and knocked him silly. She could pick on me until the cows came home, but she wouldn’t let anyone else mess with her little sister..

In adolescence, I had trouble finding my footing. I was trying to fill some pretty big, high achieving shoes with Bonnie, so I went the other direction…looking for my own niche……falling in with the teenage cigarette smoking , school skipping, dope smoking neighborhood thugs. My parents were always perplexed as to why they had one perfect kid like her, and one wild child like me who drove them to their wits end, questioning authority and making up her own rules. Bonnie was in college at the time , doing very well, of course. She defended me to my parents through it all…proclaiming that if they just backed off, I would be fine, and I would grow out of it. She supported all of my decisions, understanding somehow that I needed encouragement and support.

Bonnie always had my back.

As life does sometimes, Bonnie had a few curve balls thrown her way. After her divorce ,life was not that easy. She was a single mother trying to run her own fledgling business with no money and two small children. She waited tables to make ends meet and shopped at Goodwill, all the while managing to keep a positive attitude and a smile on her face. I will never part with the silly boxer shorts covered with Parrots she got for me at a second hand store. Being financially strapped, she still managed to get me something cute for my birthday. Things became better for her when she remarried, sold her small, struggling business and got a job with benefits in the tree business.

We were very close and talked on the phone all the time. She was my closest confidante even though we lived pretty far away from each other and didn’t get together as often as we would have liked. We had talked about someday living closer and caring for our parents as they age…discussing retirement and travel and having houses with big beautiful kitchens.. Lovely homes with gardens full of lovely flowers ,herbs and veggies. We would send each other pictures of cool houses on Redfin and dream about what we couldn’t afford.

About two years ago, I remember getting a phone call from her with the devastating news that she had breast cancer. She was stage 2 level one, and she said she had skipped a yearly mammogram, and it caught the cancer the next year. “What if” was the question we all had. As Bonnie always does, she researched thoroughly everything about breast cancer. and treatments available. She found good doctors and made some smart arrangements. Her surgery to remove the lumps left her breasts and her body misshapen and painful…She was later told she would have to go through chemo and radiation… Something we had all hoped she would be able to avoid. My brave sister shared it all with her friends,family and social media groups, even creating another support group online for others to talk about their chemo . She posted photos of her chemo ports and took pictures as she lost her beautiful hair and eyebrows. I bought her as many cute hats as I could find , and we laughed as she decorated them with flowers and scarves and other adornments. Yet she went through it all with dignity and an amazingly positive attitude, even being an inspiration for other women with the disease. Not once did she show an ounce of self pity and the only time I ever heard one bit of fear from her was when I asked her if she was scared. Only because I am her sister and told her I would be terrified if it was me did she admit : “I’m scared to death” .

She was never going to let the disease or the treatment get her down…she continued to work, to support her husband and her boys throughout their endeavors at work, and college respectively. She had friends visit and when I moved from the Northeast back to Texas, I stopped at her house and stayed for a few days. We cooked fun dishes and made some delicious granola that I took along with me and snacked on all throughout the 4 day drive when I moved. In the middle of her chemo treatments, she took a previously planned trip to Mexico on a cooking jaunt with 5 strangers……and had a wonderful time! My brave sister was not going to let this thing beat her!

Finally, she was all done with her chemo.. And had just finished her last radiation treatment .

And then I got the phone call. My Dad called me while I was in the car on the way home from a trip. “Are you home? He asked . “Why don’t you call me when you get home”

After he told me about her brain aneurysm, I remember wondering what that really meant. I knew it was very serious, but I really had no idea…

I flew out to Virginia and I remember the next few weeks being a big blur of a crash course on medical terms, surgeries,medication and hope. My birthday was that week I think…I don’t remember that day at all. She continued to spiral downward and to have additional strokes caused by the after shock-like vasospasms in her brain.

Her amazing medical team tried everything they could do to save her life…a medically induced coma, a hypothermic coma. The doctors were walking a delicately balanced tightrope of medications and surgeries. They succeeded in saving her, but she was left incapacitated, with a chunk of her skull temporarily removed as a last resort procedure to relieve the swelling in her brain… We did not know what her recovery would look like, or even if she would recover.

I remember looking at my only sister lying in the critical care neuroscience unit….She had been so excited that her hair was beginning to grow back after the chemo. It was gone again, shaved off to make space for numerous surgeries and attachment sites for various tubes and electrodes. ..She had a large portion of her skull caved in on the left side of her head from the crainectomy …There were tubes sticking out of her, machines that delivered medicines for pain, for swelling, and to balance out this level or that level……

And I wondered why.

First the cancer, then the aneurysm. As she lies in her nursing home bed, I find myself feeling a myriad of feelings. Why did this happen to her? She has so much left yet to do. She wants to travel and show her family the world. She has children to watch succeed and to grow into their young lives and dreams. She still has future grandchildren to meet and a husband to grow old with….why her? I have watched her family as they have weathered this crisis and have drawn from the strength she has instilled in them. She would be so proud of them all. She should be here to see what they have become in just a year..to see the strength she has fought to create in them. She would be so proud.

I have trouble sometimes reconciling that this unresponsive person lying in her hospital bed is the same vibrant, beautiful person as my sister.

Sometimes I have. trouble knowing who she is now and what to say and what to do. Our family dynamic has changed in such a profound way. I have had to reconcile that I am now an only child.

I have trouble making sense of why someone who was so loved and had so much to live for has had her life stolen from her.

Then there is the inevitable question that hovers around my lips…..”why her and not me”.

Why is she still between this world and the next? She is gone, but she is here.

I don’t understand. Why her?

I have trouble wrapping my head around it all.

The unfairness of it all.

To my sister, of all people. To this amazing, wonderful, beautiful human being who would cook something beautiful in her kitchen, and then share it with her friends and neighbors..

To the woman who so appreciated her cancer team and had such a great sense of humor, she made cupcakes that looked like breasts, and brought them into her doctors and nurses on the day of her tumor removal. surgery..

To the woman who loved beautiful trees, and planted them in the little community garden that she made in front of her town home for everyone to enjoy.

To the woman who loved her children and step children so much that she made numerous sacrifices to see that they were given the encouragement and opportunity to follow and discover their hearts desire, how ever far away that might take them.

To the woman who went out of her way to create groups of friends with varied interests..trees, birds, cooking, former airline friends, her college and high school friends, her cancer angel group and numerous other ones.

To the woman who loved me, her less than perfect sister. Who always wanted nothing but the best for me, was always proud of me and accepted me even as I made so many mistakes throughout my life. She always understood that no matter what you do, you can always come home and that family loves you anyway.

To a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother and a friend.

So here I am, writing this love letter to my sister, who made such an impact on my life and my thoughts in such a profound way. Even now, as she lies mostly unresponsive in her hospital bed, she continues to teach me about love, acceptance and family and about how life can change in an instant. Bonnie’s lessons are that family and friends are so important, our time is limited on this earth, and we should cherish those we love. Spend time doing things that you enjoy, and remember how time is a gift not to be squandered. She has taught me that although I no longer have my biggest cheerleader and my own personal bodyguard who will beat up the next schoolyard bully who picks on me, I am strong enough to fight for myself. She has taught me to be unafraid of my talents by always believing in me and that I am both loved and lovable. Bonnie taught me to see that my blessings are far too many to count and what having courage and grace really means.

She is with me still, even though she is not, and one of my greatest gifts is having had her in my life at all.