In February, two nieces and I took my sister to a medical clinic for a cancer related procedure. It took us all a month it seemed to set it up, to work out all the details, insurance and logistics, and to coax and convince, and mentally and emotionally prepare my sister – and all of us – for the trip. The procedure was to draw fluid from the abdomen area, not as a treatment for cancer, but to make her more comfortable, as now, after five years of chemo that had kept the cancer at bay and backed into a corner, those chemo agents were no longer effective and there were no other effective treatments known or available to halt the progression of the cancer within her.
I was to drive us all in my mini-van – my grandparent big enough for many grandchildren mini-van – more than able to accommodate my nieces and me and my sister, a cargo precious and frail. We borrowed a wheelchair and I found in my garage the plastic stool we had used for my mom to help her into my van in the final years of her five-year decline from dementia, a decline ending with her passing now eight years ago. We learned much as a family in those years, and it had been easier then in caring for and anticipating the needs of my sister – like pulling out and dusting off an old action plan – and so we were prepared somewhat more mentally and emotionally for my sister’s care and needs, though specifics always change and here, that day, we were confronted with a new situation – stairs.
Our mom had lived in a one-story home with only a single step onto the small porch leading to the front entry door, with then just one small step over the door threshold into the house. But here with my sister there were stair steps – ten of them to be exact – leading from the main level of her condo townhouse – the living room and kitchen area where she now exclusively lived – to the apartment complex walkway that lead to the street sidewalk – the ultimate destination of the first stage of our trip.
As my nieces prepared my sister for the trip and got her in the wheelchair, I stood at the top of the landing waiting to help get her down the stairs. As I waited there, I heard hammers nailing together the wooden frame of a new apartment building under construction just a short distance up the street. I had found a spot to park almost in front of the construction site and when I got out of my car, I heard the pounding and I could smell the pine scent of the framing timber, the pine smell, always a perfume to me, now all around, released as the nails penetrated the wood. The smell, reminded me of the freshly cut Christmas trees my dad always purchased for our house when I was a boy living at home, the arrival of the tree filling the living room with the scent of the pine forest, always one of the signs that Christmas time had arrived in our home. And as I waited for my nieces to emerge with my sister from the townhouse, I heard again the sound of the hammers and I could also smell again the pine, at least perhaps I think I did, for just the memory of those Christmases past when I was a young boy, when my sister here was even younger, was so intense, so real, that the perfume, that smell of life and joy of Christmas, was a reality in my soul, the scent of pine filling me with an ever deepening appreciation and understanding of life – of the life all around me, of my life and my sister’s life as young children at Christmas, of her life…
When my nieces brought my sister out, we managed to take her down the stairs backwards – a potential comedy flashing before my mind, but one mixed with the image of a very possible disaster awaiting some of us, probably me, if we slipped. We then secured her safely into the car and off we drove to the medical clinic some miles away. I tried singing the story of the backwards descent of the wheelchair down the steps to my sister and entourage, and…well, I won’t say it wasn’t appreciated, but just that the appreciation was short-lived, very short.
At the clinic, one niece stayed with my sister for most of the time, and my other niece – my oldest niece whose fiftieth birthday, unbelievable, was some years ago – and I sat on a bench in the lobby and we talked of my sister. We both felt that the failing health of my sister, her aunt, was still very abstract to us in many ways. I confessed that there were only moments right now that made my sister’s life and her not so far off passing real – moments touching me deeply within. One moment had been about a week or so ago on a Sunday night, when I got into my bed and turned off the light, that it really hit me that at that moment my sister, who had never married or had children, was alone, indeed alone, and that thought sunk ever further within, pausing my breath. I began to understand and contemplate that in similar circumstances, I would probably also be like her, asleep on the sofa in the living room, the light still on, the TV always on, perhaps also turned to the old classic movie station – with light, not darkness, in the room, the TV, a form of life, at least the company of human voices. It was her aloneness that left me staring into the darkened room, her sleep with the TV on, my sleep different with the gentle noises and warmth of my wife next to me.
I told my niece that occasionally when I was with her in the evening, I would stop and look at all the items she had spent her many years in the condo arranging and rearranging in her home or placing upon the walls. She had a curio cabinet with many little figurines and little boxes – many adorned with cats – echoes of her love of cats. Two of her three cats were now her constant companions, one burrowing in under her covers on the sofa, the other perched on top enjoying the softness of the blankets and perhaps the warmth, however small, my sister’s frail and thinning body generated. These two cats were sisters – my sister’s “girls” – and they were friendly, always up for any petting or scritch they could coax or finagle. The third cat, a large attractive charcoal furred male cat, I rarely saw, as he only came downstairs late in the evening to lay on the sofa back where he would look down upon my sister and keep watch for a time.
It was in these moments, when I looked upon all the things that my sister had purchased, the decorations upon the wall, the mugs and canisters and all the things in the kitchen, and everything else displayed about her home, that I began to feel the sad ebbing of meaning from all these possessions of my sister. And not many years ago, she had remodeled the kitchen and dining area – a very nice, bright and tasteful remodeling, perfect for gatherings of our large family. The biggest family gathering was on Christmas Eve, a week or so after she hosted the annual family tamale making breakfast, a breakfast I always attended when we were in the Valley and not with one of my daughters and family elsewhere, my tamale making skills always labeled less-than-even-adequate and subject to constant critique, my partaking of the egg casserole and Mexican pan dulce breakfast, however, exemplary.
As my niece and I talked, still sitting on the bench in the indoor lobby, wearing masks because of the pandemic, we found we shared a common response of sorrow to one sight within my sister’s home that made the sickness and eventual leaving of my sister move from the abstract to the real. This was when we beheld all the white cardboard boxes of decorations that my sister had in her garage for the various holidays, major and minor, and for the seasons of the year – Christmas and Thanksgiving, Spring, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Summer and July 4th, Easter, etcetera – all labeled as to the holiday, and neatly stacked on the shelving so conveniently in place for this purpose when she purchased the townhouse years ago, the down payment an advance on her inheritance from our mom that I helped arrange. The decorations were everywhere, and flowed from the shelves to the ample garage floor, and plastic containers of large Christmas tree ornaments, not given space on the shelves, stood out here and there as Christmas beacons of gold, blue and red, and silver, on top of boxes of other holiday supplies stacked on the concrete floor.
I had of course seen these boxes for years going in and out of the garage picking up my sister for the doctor visits and chemo infusions, or bringing in her groceries from my weekly shopping for her – a weekly task I enjoyed that I no longer performed, as she was not really eating anymore. But now when I saw the boxes, all neatly labeled, and the Christmas tree ornaments randomly placed about where space allowed, the sight slowly stole into my mind, burdening and saddening me, as the understanding deepened that soon these holiday decorations – regardless of how neatly labeled and stacked they were – that soon they would lose their intended purpose and meaning, because my sister will be gone, my sister who thoughtfully planned, purchased, and put together these decorations to make her life brighter, and also ours, because, yes, with them, on Christmas Eve, with the Christmas decorations, she lovingly made the family tamale feast cheery and festive for all who were there. But more, I understood that she put these decorations out in her home for herself so that she would not be all empty and feel alone for any holiday within her own home, surrounding herself with the life of the holidays and seasons of our past family life, even as she prepared to drive to some family member’s home to celebrate. And she traveled because family, her family, was very important to her, they were her life in many ways, and she bravely, but always alone, maintained her life and love for all of us, in the way she best was able and knew how to do, at any moment in her life. But, soon these holiday decorations would become something else to someone else, when my sister parted from us, when there would no longer be an etcetera to her holiday decorating or life.
My conversation with my oldest niece was wonderful and I believe very meaningful for both of us. When my sister was finished with the medical procedure, the nieces went to fetch her. As I sat on the bench waiting, a family came out into the lobby and a young boy, maybe five or six, carrying a medium-size plastic box filled and almost overflowing with his toys, stopped for a moment on the bench next to the one I sat upon and carefully rested his box on top of it. I thought what a great idea by whomever letting the boy bring a box of toys to let him play with while waiting for someone else in the family. Perhaps it was a regular occurrence, such as it had been with my sister and me. He kept his eyes on his mom and perhaps his grandmother, watching them pay for the parking and when they had paid, he then slowly picked up his box of toys – his treasures – and hurried up to leave with them.
I was happy the boy had stopped with his toys nearby, for nothing is really random when one considers the constant touch of the lovingkindness of the Lord. For the boy was a reminder to me of the continuity of life, of how a family member with a serious condition may soon be leaving, but to a child, it is mostly a distant abstraction, and probably not even that. For a child is filled with life and is happy with his toys, but to others, to myself, because my sister is family, and because I’m getting older, he was also a reminder that at some point in time, all of us will leave and that we will also leave behind the joy of watching a young boy with a box of his toys, but the child, will continue on without thought or memory of us. And this is good. We ourselves have already done this many times in our own lives already.
My nieces brought my sister to the lobby in the wheelchair. I went to get the car, drove down the ramp from an upper parking level, stopped by the inside lobby doors, got out and paid for the parking, just as the boy’s mother had done, while my nieces got my sister, our own treasure, safely back into the car. We drove back to my sister’s condo complex, managed her out of the car into the wheelchair, pushed her back up the complex walkway, pushed and pulled her in the wheelchair up the ten steps – harder up than down had been – to her front landing, and I held the screen door open so my nieces could wheel her into her place. I gently closed the screen door – if you just let it go, it made a terrible loud metallic bang that annoyed my sister greatly, which she was swift to let you know about…even now.
I stayed at the door for a moment or so to make sure all was well inside, and from down the street I could again hear the hammers nailing the wood. I don’t know if I truly smelled the pine scent this time, but that did not matter as memory provided the perfume. The images of our dad bringing in our Christmas tree and all of us kids ready to help with decorating began to take shape in my mind, but then softly blended into the image of my sister’s garage and the stacks of all the labeled white holiday decoration boxes. I knew that these decorations were important to my sister…and…then…I more deeply understood that these boxes and decorations were really treasures to my sister, treasures by which she celebrated her life, even if much of the celebration was alone, just her, bravely. And I thought of the little boy in the medical building lobby, carrying his toy treasures in the medium size plastic box, and how when he left the lobby, he took his treasures with him. But now with my sister, one of my dear younger sisters, I realized that these treasures in the white boxes would not be going with her, no, they would be left behind, she would leave them behind, when she parted, and that is when I began to understand and deeply feel that…she was leaving, and that when she left, she would truly be gone…and that all this now was moving from the abstract to the real…a deep private reality and sadness…for even now…with me…
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