And this makes your heart stronger...

So... THIS dream.

I walked into a room. I'm pretty sure it was a bingo hall, because where else would Mom be right now? There were lots of other people, but I only saw the four sitting at the table in front of me. Mom was on the end and next to her was Dad. Across from them were Cheryl and Kenna. I looked at Mom and I could see her features in detail. She watched me as I approached the table and I saw her face light up. She was wearing the shirt she had on in her Facebook profile picture, which was taken in 2006 or 2007, whichever year it was that we gave her the surprise birthday party.

Me: How did you do that?
Mom: How did I do what?
Me: You know what.
Mom: When people die you don't lose them. They don't go away.

The scene changed and I was sitting on a bed next to Mom. She was explaining some kind of machine to me as I was trying it on. It consisted of an oxygen tube with some kind of box that rested on my chest.

Mom: And this makes your heart stronger.

Then she was gone and I was talking to a man who was a medical professional. I don't think he was a doctor. I got the impression that he was either a physical therapist or a respiratory therapist.

Me: So that's what happened when she died?

And then I woke up.

When people die you don't lose them. They don't go away. And this makes your heart stronger.

Sisters – From Scourge to Sentinel

If my story can save just one life...

My previous entries have already established that my older sisters were two of the biggest tormentors of my childhood years and often the bane of my existence. Had you told me when I was seven (and Mom quite likely did) that my sisters would become two of my best friends, I would have scoffed for days. How could these two people, who then caused me so much sibling suffering, ever be my willing confidantes? But of course that’s exactly what happened. 

Oh, I saw signs of it even back then. When an older boy pushed me into a busy street (busy by small town standards, which means not really that busy at all) I cried to Cheryl, who then traveled to his house, knocked on his door and promptly punched him in the nose. When she followed up with “That’s for my baby sister!” he protested, “But I don’t even know your sister!” It turned out the pushing perpetrator was actually his brother, who still lived at home with their parents. 

Oops!

On another occasion that I sometimes think of as Slapocalypse ‘79 (although I’m kind of muddy on the dates now) I was involved in a verbal altercation with a neighborhood friend who was about two years older than I. Her closing argument came in the form of a slap to my face, and Kenna immediately and instinctively returned the infraction. This earned Kenna a slap in the face from the girl’s older sister (who was Kenna’s age and one of her closest friends.) It was a retaliatory wallop-fest of epic proportion.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Me!

The stuff of my childhood nightmares!

I’ve already touched upon how Cheryl used to scare Kenna and me with music. But that was far from the only thing that frightened me as a child. I daresay was the biggest scaredy-cat the world has ever known, and it wasn’t just normal kid stuff that scared me. Oh I was afraid of those things, don’t get me wrong. Spiders, bugs, snakes, the dark, the boogeyman, monsters under the bed or in the closet – they were all horrifying. But my childhood list of “Things That Make Me Jump, Scream, Cry, or Give Me Nightmares” included some not-so-common fears as well.

For instance, I was afraid of railroad tracks. It wasn’t just trains, although if a train was passing by I could be found cowering in the back seat with my hands clamped over my ears and my eyes squeezed shut. If that sucker was going to jump the track and land on our car, I didn’t want to see it happen. But even if there was no train in sight, the tracks themselves sent me into a tizzy. If I was crossing them in a car I was fine, and most of the time I could even ride my bicycle over them if I was going fast enough. But walking across railroad tracks was a different story. I would stand at the side of the tracks, look both ways, take a deep breath, chicken out, and start all over. I couldn’t explain why the trainless tracks scared me so much. Mom had a theory that I watched too many cartoons but I didn’t buy that.

The Early Years: A.K.A. I'm Telling Mom!

To say I had a traumatic childhood would be a bit of a stretch. I was never abused, never witnessed a disturbing event, never disfigured in an accident--unless you count the barely visible scar on my right thumb from slamming it in my dad’s truck door. As childhoods go, I would say I got pretty lucky.

But I was the youngest of three sisters who, for a brief time which I barely remember, all shared the same bedroom. As anyone who has ever lived with more than one female can attest, the opportunity for disaster was rich.