happy birthday Brenda!

Thank God for Facebook, otherwise I would never remember anybody's birthdays!  There are a few that I can remember... but overall, yeah, I normally forget.  Today is my sisters birthday, and while every day is a blessing, birthdays for Brenda are a special blessing for our entire family.  In 1995 we discovered that she was in a late stage of non hodgkins lymphomia, and the doctors told her that she only had six months left to live.

The news rocked her world.  She had two teenage boys, a school age daughter, and a baby boy that needed her... basically, she had no time for death to get in the way raising her family -- and she told the doctors as much.  They pretty much shrugged their shoulders and said sorry about your luck.  But I do not come from a family of quitters, and nobody would accept the diagnosis.  She left California and moved to Oklahoma where our brother had found a cancer center and oncologist that would take her case.  Within a short time, for the first time that I could remember, all of my siblings were in the same state at once.  We had no idea what the future held... but we knew that we wanted to hold onto her.

I was only there for a short while.  I had just had Jaydan, and John and I were on the verge of starting our lives together as husband and wife.  I was there long enough to witness her weight loss, her vomitting, and the exhaustion that came with the treatment.  I don't think it actually hit me until Easter of that year though.  We all gathered at our sister's house out in the country to celebrate together... and there were a lot of us.  My mom has seven kids, and of those seven kids none of us has less than 2 kids of our own, and the older of those kids have had kids... so, there were a LOT of people there.  Growing up, Brenda was like a second mother to me.  Her oldest son, Jeremy, was more my brother than he was my nephew.  I always knew that when Brenda was around, there would never be a dull moment.  She was insane, she would pretend to be a witch, or hide behind a corner to scare you, and just stand there and laugh a true belly laugh afterward.  She's the odd one that sticks a spoon to her nose at the dinner table and carries on a conversation with you with a straight face.  

But that Easter, she wasn't chasing kids or laughing with the adults.  She sat on the porch with a blanket wrapped around her despite the warm spring day.  Her skin, that once radiated life, hung from her bones and looked almost gray.  Her hair was short and looked like straw, it had lost all of it's luster and health.  As I chased the kids around the yard and helped the younger ones find the eggs, I tried to not look at her.  I hated what the monster inside of her body was doing to her.  I didn't want to see her like that, and I wanted her back.  I wanted her to be out there helping me help the kids.  I wanted her to sneak up behind me and scare me, I wanted her to laugh.  I hated that in the back of my mind I wondered if any of that would ever happen again.  I can say this though, even though she looked so sickly, the life in her eyes never dulled, and that gave me a tiny sliver of hope.

Through the years we watched her go through treatment.  We rejoiced when she went into remission, I cried myself to sleep when she went out of remission.  Cancer became an almost tangible entity to me.  I pictured it as a tall lanky man with a long pointed nose like a rat.  He wore a long black overcoat, black boots, and a fedora that covered the top half of his face.  Sometimes he carried a walking stick, other times I could almost see him standing against the wall sneering at me.   It seemed like every time we got the upper hand on Cancer, Cancer fought back and backed us into a corner.  I was grateful that I had moved from Oklahoma to North Carolina.  I didn't want to watch her be sick anymore.  I wanted to call her on the phone and pretend that everything was OK.  The last time I found out that she had gone back into remission I rejoiced with prejudice.  I had heard that song before, and I knew that the Cancer could be lurking in the shadows, just waiting for us to drop our guard so that he could once again invade her body. 

But, Cancer never came back.  I guess he realized that he picked a fight with the wrong woman.  I know that many out there cannot say the same thing.  I know that many of you have lost the people that you love the most to the same sinister beast that haunted the shadows of my mind when my sister was sick.  For that I am truly sorry, and my heart breaks for your loss.  But, today, on another birthday, I cannot be more happy that I can say that Brenda is around to blow out another candle and eat another slice of cake.  I thank God every day that she is still here, because selfishly, I don't know what I would do if I knew she was gone.  She's my inspiration.  She's my hero.  She's my sister.