Lessons My Sister Taught Me

My sister was readmitted the hospital last week because she was having trouble breathing, possibly due to the pneumonia that landed here there in the first place. But, while in the hospital, she spoke to her oncologist and the news was this: with chemotherapy she'd have about twelve months to live, but without it she'd have maybe six months.

I hate those kinds of statements, because, while I know they aren't truly accurate and set in stone, I don't like hearing them.

My sister has opted for the chemo, and she has started the process this morning while still in the hospital. She has a positive outlook, and I have been working on my positivity. It helps that, while in college, I took a psychology course called 'Death & Dying.' I have always been fascinated by how people handle death, and deal with death; not the actual act of dying, but the knowledge that, perhaps, death is closer than expected.

My sister and I have like minds on death: there is no fear of it, though there is also no anticipation for it, but there is a sense that it's part of our journey and, naturally, a necessary step. I learned in that psych class that death and dying is actually harder on the living, on those left behind, than it is on the dying person, and I saw that first-hand when my mother was dying.

So, I will take on some of my sister's positive attitude and mix with it my feelings that she is just on another part of her journey.

Now, another lesson I learned from my sister:

We are only fifteen months apart, age-wise, and so we very close growing up. We went o grade school, junior high school, and high school together, and though we had some of that 'don't look at me' attitude while in high school, it was always nice to see my sister walking the halls.

This story is about a basketball game, and a pair of high school mascots. Our school were Cougars--not like the cougars of today, aging women who date children, but real cougars--and there were a pair of Cougars who stood on the sidelines during football and basketball season, riling up the crowds, playing with the cheerleaders and generally just having fun.,

One of the girls who wore a mascot costume couldn't make the game one night and asked my sister to take her place. The other girl also begged off, and, well, my sister asked me.

I said, No.

Then I thought about it; I thought it might be interesting to step out of my comfort zone, though in those days we had no idea about comfort zones and such. I just thought it might be fun to not be me for a while. So, I relented.

The costumes came, big, furry, heavy, hot, and off we went to the game. I kept my cougar head on all night so no one knew it was me, but it gave me the chance to act in public like I wanted to act, and not like I thought I should. I learned that it was okay to be different, to march to a different drummer, to act the fool, to have fun for fun’s sake.

To not care what people thought about you.

Again, it was a lesson that took a while to stick; there were other lessons that needed to be learned first, like accepting myself, coming out, and allowing others to accept me, too, but for those couple of hours on a Friday night in November, 19fumphity-fumphy, I was my one true self.

Under a fur covered head, yes, but my one true self. And I learned, from my sister, that it was okay to be yourself, because she knew who that fool in the cougar costume was, but she still loved him, no matter how he acted.

My sister, my hero.