Missing My MeMe

I witnessed a very disturbing, yet priceless, lesson yesterday. A club at school presented a program on driver safety and drunk driving. They went all out, too. The kids set the stage and presented a scenario where a girl has a party while her parents are out of town. When someone shows up with alcohol, things get wild. One of the students acts as though he is extremely drunk, and refuses a ride home. In addition, he agrees to take several other party-goers home. The scene ends and the entire assembly is led outside to a mock accident scene.

The accident scene was very realistic. People were screaming for help while others were apparently dead. The police and firefighters actually arrived at the fictitious scene, and began rescue efforts. Shortly afterwards, an ambulance arrived complete with EMTs and stretchers. Finally, the medic helicopter landed to rush the critically injured to area hospitals.

The entire program was well-planned, and extremely realistic. So realistic, in fact, that I nearly lost my composure. I fought back the tears, and finally had to remove myself from the entire scene. It was more than I could bear.

Ya see, on a Friday evening in November of 1993, my sister was in a very similar accident and was killed. She and a couple of friends had been drinking. They got into a car with an intoxicated driver and did not fasten their seatbelts. The driver was speeding over some railroad tracks and failed to yield at the intersection. They slammed into a truck driven by a man on his way to his night shift job. Luckily for him, he was wearing his seatbelt and survived with few injuries.

My sister and her friends were not so lucky. Because my sister was not wearing her seatbelt, she flew towards the windshield and broke her neck on the frame. The driver was nearly decapitated as she was thrown completely through the windshield. The rear passenger did survive the crash, but later died without ever gaining consciousness. Amazingly, this is almost exactly how the mock car scene looked with the driver hanging out of the windshield and everything! It felt so surreal and nearly brought me to my knees.

My sister was the cutest thing in the world! I was always so jealous of her. Everyone loved her! She was full of life, and could make me laugh like no one else. We weren't very close growing up, but had really gotten close in the years before her death. The "competition," that is often so prevelant with sisters who are close in age, was finally over. We had our own lives and our own interests and could actually enjoy each other's company.

Just before she died, she was having serious marital problems, though. She and her husband had just separated. We talked on the phone the night before the accident. She was so upset and crying about her husband and his new girlfriend. I remember distinctly trying to console her and telling her how much I loved her. She probably went out that night hoping to drink her sorrows away. She certainly did that...

Any way, all of those emotions just came back to me in a flash. I didn't even realize those feelings were still there! Nearly 15 years later, I can handle this. Right?? But that is farther from the truth than anyone realizes. Ever since her death, I have felt completely alone. I have a brother, but he and I have never been close. I personally don't think he's interested either. He's very consumed with himself and his own demons, but I'll save that for another blog.

So here I am...an only child to parents who don't feel the need to stay close either. They, too, have their own problems with my mother needing a transplant and my dad still working 60 hours a week at 62 years old. Again, I'll save it for another blog. For this is about the hole in my life where my sister once stood.

We were not twins, but we were only 13 months apart. The tumultuous teen years nearly ripped us apart, but we hung in there. We had too much in common to not be friends. We may have led our lives differently, but we had the same sense of humor. She and I could have fun in a closet with only a flashlight and an egg timer.

Ahhhh, I miss her. It makes me sad when I realize that I can't even remember her face. At her funeral, I kept studying her hands. I did not want to forget how those fingers looked. She'd always bitten her nails, but had finally kicked the habit. When she died her nails were no longer nubs; they were manicured and painted. So I studied those hands like I was studying for a big test. Often when I get scared because I can't remember her, I concentrate on visualizing those wonderful little hands...that hump in her wrist that I think was a cyst...those skinny, knobby fingers...

I miss my little sis.