My younger sister, a few years ago, was told she had cancer of the thyroid and needed radiation. She survived this round and planned a family get-together with us down on the coast. But a few months later, she was diagnosed with throat cancer and needed more radiation. At the same time, they discovered more cancer in other parts of her body. The treatment for her throat was almost inhuman and especially for a girl that couldn’t ever be held down at all. She called me at 10 pm one night, crying her eyes out that she couldn’t do any more radiation on her throat. It was painful, but her husband and others wanted her to keep going. I told her to quit crying. I would tell her husband in the morning, along with the doctor, you have had enough. I called both the following day and made myself some new enemies. (anyone reading my post know how I make friends)

I hadn’t intended to become the person she would call each night, but here I was, listening, with tears rolling down my cheeks each night, talking with her, trying with no signs of emotion. Her new dream was to have Christmas, and I would listen as she acted like a young mother again, excited by the prospect of the event. I would mention it would be nice to have all the family around one more time. The doctor would tell her he would try one more treatment to get her to this Christmas. I called him, and he explained she was on borrowed time and that if she made it to October this year, she would be lucky, three months away.

I never considered myself a man that you could bring emotional troubles to but here I was with a sister that was on deaths bed. They moved her downstairs, which isolated her most of the time, she was too weak to walk and was fragile, but now she was alone most of the time. I had mention to her earlier that 10 o’clock was a good time to call so I think she either watched the clock or set her alarm, it was almost ever night.

The last few days, I called her often as I worked and wished I had done it more before these last days. She tells me I will not make it to Christmas, am I? No, you are not. I am scared, Ric; I tell her don’t you believe in your faith, and she replies I do; then my older sister, that is what you hold onto, she laughs, no, I am the younger one. (a game we played as kids) The many tears I cried inside after numerous firefights in combat flowed like rivers for real with her death. She made it to September.

My thoughts on reading after her death are that we never die in reality, even in the flesh; every newborn has a little DNA that is passed on to all of our living relatives from the beginning of our line. So many thoughts and actions are directly related to some far gone and forgotten love one that was never known. How strange?

“Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them.” …