Two years ago last February when I flew east to see Pop for the final time, he had a special request. His favorite hamburger store on the planet was a half-hour away. Could we make a run?
I grabbed my kid sister and said “Let’s go.”
Ninety days before his 94th birthday, he was confined to bed mostly, though he did enjoy being wheeled into the busy lobby of the suburban nursing home. You could shave a heavily bearded man with the still sharp-edge of Pop’s mind.
But this story is about my kid sister. Born after I left home, she was of a separate generation, and we knew each other only as strangers.
An hour and a half on the road that afternoon was the longest time we ever spent in each other’s company. While we knew I was there to bid goodbye to Pop, here was a sudden chance to know the one mystery among my five sisters.
Some families breathe. Some eat. Some travel. In our house, you talked. You could say we had the most flatfooted family in town because of siblings and other relatives constantly stepping on the toes of others so they could be urgently heard.
Except for that afternoon dash across the countryside, the only memories of my kid sister are in my ear.
During Pop’s final months after I returned home, we spoke every day by telephone, seldom for less than 45 minutes. It was almost like a new boy and girl becoming acquainted because she wanted to know what kind of books I liked, what foods I ate.
Estrangement has been a frequent visitor to our family. Once my kid sister stopped speaking to me for eight years.
I don’t know why. And now I never will.
To the shock of all of us, my kid sister, the extremely reluctant loner, was found by police and two friends last Wednesday in a diabetic coma.
There is no chance she will emerge. Her organs were shutting down, the doctor said yesterday. He offered to technically keep her alive another week if we wished. We didn’t.
The end likely will be tonight or tomorrow.
I have many questions but a greater number of regrets.
