GROWING UP
In sickness and in health, sisters are inseparable.
Christmas memories
My sister, Mary, had an afterschool doctor’s appointment, and so I darted off the bus alone and let myself into the house at the start of the two-week Christmas vacation in 1981.
When my mom, Grace, and Mary came home, I greeted them with a peppy “Hi!”—but their faces were serious. “The doctor thinks I have asthma,” Mary said. It was seven days before Christmas and we should have been shaking our presents and debating about what Santa would leave in our stockings, but Mary was tired and coughing. On Christmas Eve, Mary wasn’t any better, so my worried parents took her to the emergency room. “I’ll be home for Christmas, Annie,” she said. I hung on to her clammy hand and hoped.
That night I went to sleep without my first friend in the world. I wasn’t remotely excited about presents and stockings; flying solo, my holiday was ho-hum.
On Christmas morning, my parents convinced me that Santa Claus visits hospitals, too, so Mary would get something in her stocking. Without much excitement, I reached into my stocking and found a deck of cards, a candy cane, a dollar and some peppermint lip balm. Then, without warning, I was struck with a severe flu bug.
My dad, Dan, spent Christmas morning taking care of me, but I became dehydrated. And so back we went to the emergency room. I would have to spend the night in the hospital, too.
Mary and I were in separate wings of the building, but we yammered on the phone until we both got tired. I felt better that night knowing that Mary was nearby, even if the hospital was scary. I went home the next day, and Mary the day after that.
We unwrapped presents on New Year’s Day, but it took a bout of the holiday fever to make me realize that shiny presents mean nothing if you don’t have your closest friend with you.