Tied With a Teal-colored Ribbon
This is the blog I ran away from.
For weeks her smile has been in front of me. I can hear her laugh.
I celebrated her birthday without her—without a cake or candles, without a card, without calling her. I’ve kept the part of my heart that holds her ever close to me, tied shut. Because her laughter is not the only thing that comes rolling out whenever I open it—the ache comes, too.
I thought I could escape it—I thought I could find a way to share what she taught me in a positive take-away message and address this heaviness without really untying the knot.
So last week I wrote about reconnecting. About finding a way to connect with friends and community. I could wrap the moral of the story into a nice uplifting message complete with headings and maybe even score some SEO’s. Tie it all together with a nice tidy little bow.
But my heart felt no release. A person can’t always take the fathomless from the heart, unroll it, smooth it out, and translate it into a nice clean format with engaging graphics.
Bows are meant to be untied.
There’s a million images packed into that place deep in my heart—stuffed in and squished down like memorabilia in a trunk. I can see her blinking away tears, shaking her head and pressing her lips tight together in disagreement. I can feel her push me aside so she can steal the warm spot by the radiator in the school hallway, laughing. I can picture her walking down the hall to our lockers in the new pants she bought herself for her birthday, a shy grin on her face.
I remember—sitting in her kitchen while her mom gave me a perm—sitting on her porch waving at the guys driving by on the road—sitting on my bed and talking for hours.
I’ve tucked away the real memorabilia, too. The photos that fill my highschool albums. The jewelry she gave me for my birthday. The handmade doll she made. The bundle of letters she wrote when I went off to college, and the patchwork quilt she and her mom sewed for my wedding.
She stands with me in my wedding pictures—her shoes my “something borrowed.”
Then she moved away, and so did we, and there were more letters.
There’s a box of them in my trunk upstairs. I can still pick hers out by the way she wrote my name on the envelope. And inside, every one starts with ‘Hi Sis.’ All my life I’d wanted a sister. True, I had plenty of siblings who called me that. But there were a lot of times in my childhood I’d have gladly traded all four brothers for just one sister.
She had two sisters of her own, but that was the name she chose for me.
Then life came faster and faster, and the letters, slower and slower.
She called—“I miss you. You hardly ever write anymore.”
I listed my excuses. My husband, my children, work. Building a house ourselves. My life was so busy—packed to overflowing. I never had time to write letters.
“Then call,” she said.
“I will,” I said. But I didn’t.
She called to say she was coming to visit. But we weren’t going to be around.
“Come see me,” she said. But I didn’t…
People grow apart.
Friendships blossom and fade, we all know that. Don’t we?
My life was chock full of all the things I’d chosen. I loved it. And besides, she lived so far away now.
And then the letter came. The one I read over and over.
“Dear Sis,” It said. “I need to tell you, I have ovarian cancer.”
I wrote to her. “Lean on me.”
But she couldn’t—because I was too far away, and my days were too full. And the letters stopped coming.
The holidays came and my house was overflowing with my brothers and their wives and all the kids running everywhere, and there was shouting and laughing and feasting when the phone rang.
It was her older sister. And then the phone was silent, leaving me with all my excuses.
And on that empty day, I very carefully closed the part of my heart that belonged to her, and tied it shut with a teal-colored ribbon.
Dedicated to Betty, my BFF. The first-ever sister of my heart.
Happy Birthday.
Love, Sis
And for all those who battle cancer, and the people who love them.
Note: According to the American Cancer Society, ovarian cancer is the cause of more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system. Lots of people know what a pink ribbon stands for. Help raise awareness for ovarian cancer, and wear a teal-colored ribbon.
