Sisters

Late last night, I was standing in the kitchen wearing my pink flannel champagne pajamas when my teenagers came home from a party hosted by a theater friend, who has recently become a self-proclaimed witch. They told me how mid-party he brought out a crystal ball and fell into a psychic trance where his eyes rolled back in his head and he told them to follow their dreams.

I love these kinds of stories. Growing up in a Mormon family full of witches and psychics– one aunt used to read our cards at family night, and another aunt used to read our palms. We always heard stories about Nana who practiced black magic, and my aunt practiced white magic. and all the women in my family had dreams about who was going to have twins and where my alcoholic uncle hid his liquor (under the mattress).

The teen party description was interrupted by my older sister, Maria, who was visiting for the holiday. She came jumping into the room like she had an invisible jumprope, wearing pink pajamas that matched mine.

She hopped around the dining room table chanting a “jumprope song” from our childhood:

“Crystal Ball!

Please tell me!

What kind of man will marry me?

Rich man? Poor man? Beggar man? Thief?

Doctor? Lawyer? Indian chief?”

She chanted at the top of her lungs while hopping around and we all burst out laughing, except my teen son who was lying on the couch making a tik tok on his ipad and wouldn’t look up. She hopped over to him and sat on him, chanting and waving her arms till he was laughing so hard he dropped his iPad .

I haven’t heard that song since I was probably 8 years old, and vague memories floated back to me like cotton candy tendrils while she chanted, of bare feet on the hot street, skinned knees, callused hands rubbed by the rope, chalk on the ground from hopscotch…

I have told my children many times that my greatest wish for them is that they have each other the way I have my sisters, Marlise and Maria. Growing up in the same house together, we have a short hand language together that no one else knows.

(For example, we know that Maria had the hots for Neal Diamond and saw the Jazz Singer 34 times in the theater. We know that Marlise took scissors to my childhood poster of Andy Gibb because she didn’t like his hairy chest. We know every boy Maria dated because Marlise and I used to spy on her through the venetian blinds in our room as she said goodnight to her dates on the porch, to see if she kissed anyone.)

A fiery no-nonsense Virgo with a very bossy nature, Maria usually ends up running every company she works for, and would make a great CEO.

Marlise, on the other hand, is an earthy introvert who loves long hikes to waterfalls and draws people to her like a warm fireplace on a cold day. This is funny because she doesn’t really like people, and she always jokes that when people start to tell me their troubles, I invite them over for cookies to tell me more while she holds up her hand and says, “Stop talking” and sends them on their way. She is caring and compassionate, but she has six kids and doesn’t have room for anyone else’s problems. She always stops storytellers, saying, “Give me the short version!” While I love a good long story. We always shared a room growing up, and were so close our parents used to tell us we would have conversations while sleeping.

We all are really busy, pulled in many different directions: Kids! Work! Husbands! Ex-husbands! (Okay, honestly, I’m the only one with an ex.) But we talk on the phone every day and make time to see each other as often as possible.

The last two years of my life have been a total flooding of tragedy, like the smashing destruction and achingly slow sinking of the Titanic.

My sisters have been my lifeboat. They have both flown in several times, and most recently, Maria came. I didn’t even know how badly I needed her physical presence until I burst into tears when we hugged at the airport.

Both of them flew in when our father was in his last days. We had trouble managing his pain and my little sister rode in the ambulance with him to hospice and Maria and I followed in my car. My brothers flew in and we all stayed by my Dad’s side all day and took turns staying with him at night.

When my sisters ended up coming home with me, they dragged me out to walk to the beach two blocks from my house. We walked out on the sand, the three of us, and talked, and cried, and laughed, and pretended to hold the moon in our hands.

(It wasn’t all moonlight and hand-holding. There are agonizing memories that I push away when they flood my mind: things like black vomit, my Dad bunching up his blanket over and over again in his beautiful once-strong hands while murmuring things we couldn’t understand, everyone running in circles as our great and fearless leader shrunk and shriveled before our eyes. They wouldn’t let us give him food or water, and it was unbearable to watch him suffer.)

Kim flew in to help me with the kids so I could be with my Dad. She brought them to the hospice so they could say goodbye to their grandfather. Kim knew my Dad well, and he adored her and always said, “Marci, I’m so glad you have Kim.” At hospice, Kim asked us if we wanted her to sing for my Dad. We all nodded yes. There’s something about the vibrations of live music in a hospice room that sets up a sort of net of around all of us in the room, a sparkling net, like one you might see under the high flying trapeze, which is exactly how caring for your father in his last days feels: like you’re flying through air, holding out your hands, hoping that if you swing right and let go at just the right time, someone will catch you.

Kim has a beautiful singing voice, and she sang a gorgeous soft version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow for my Dad, her hand resting lightly on the blanket over his feet, a huge loving smile on her face as she sang to him, to me, to all of us.

But all of us, my Mom and us kids, stayed by my Dad’s side, talking, singing, dancing, laughing, doing pushups (my brother), and occasionally arguing. Then we’d take a walk outside in the gardens of the hospice and return to the sacred space of watching over my Dad. Near the end, Maria got mad at me about something (I don’t remember what) and decided to return home.

I said, “What? I thought you said you were staying till the end!”

She stood there, chomping her gum with her cop sunglasses on, tears streaming down her face, “No, you got this.”

“Hold on, are you mad about something? Because at this point I hope you know better than to ever take offense to anything I say. I don’t even know what I’m saying half the time. I’m overwhelmed, exhausted, heartbroken, and if I say something you don’t like, just tell me to shut the hell up, but don’t leave.”

She nodded and changed her flight to stay and was standing next to me holding my Dad as he took his last breath.

I can’t even tell you the searing loss for all of us of such a soul. He was an extraordinary father because he was funny as hell, but also a pillar of integrity and loyalty. He loved and prioritized us over work, wealth, and accomplishment, but never had to tell us because he showed us through his actions and his life choices over and over again. At the last breath, my Mom was confused, arguing with the nurse, fussing over my Dad, straightening the sheet, kissing his head over and over again until Maria and I took her in our arms so strangers could carry away her great love. She never recovered from losing him, and we haven’t either. And having my sisters to grieve with lightens the heaviness a little We can call each other crying, and we don’t need any explanation because we know.

Even in their own grief, my sisters have been with me as I was hit over and over with Titanic-level crashes.

They were irate when they learned how my ex-husband had betrayed me, and heartbroken when I called them and told them about Kim. Maria sent me a tree with pink flowers. Marlise sent me wind chimes engraved with Kim’s name and said, “We grieve with you.”

Every time I walk by the wind chimes, I tap them so their beautiful sound will wash over me and I’ll imagine Kim is here with me, and my sisters.

So on Maria’s last day here, her plane got delayed and the kids had a glorious snow day. We all decided to watch Stranger Things.

We love snow days at our house: slippers and hot cocoa and roaring fires and snow angels and snow ice cream and movie marathons.

But on this snow day, I was having a hard time staying present with the kids because my phone was ringing off the hook with divorce drama, and some very dark people seriously yucking my yum by screaming vitriol in my ear and acting devious and duplicitous.

And as I watched Stranger Things, I realized, the trauma of divorce is like the Upside Down. I look around and it looks like my house, my neighborhood, my yard, but it’s dark and cold and toxic and there are faceless monsters waiting to pounce, slimy slithering reptilian dark snakes aggressively coming after you, trying to destroy all that’s beautiful and positive and light. The air in the Upside Down is so toxic, it’s hard to breathe.

The air in the Divorce Drama World is so toxic, it’s hard to breathe.

My sister took charge. (I told you she was bossy.) She answered calls, conference-called my other sister, and discussed ways to deal with the demagorgons. I sat next to my sister on the couch in the greenhouse, with the flowers blooming and the waterfalls flowing and the twinkle lights twinkling and listened to her phone calls and chimed in, but finally, I dealt with it the only way I know.

I turned my phone off and ran out into the snow, the branches heavy and curving with whipped cream sparkles, the dogs leaping with every step, my beloved teenagers sitting in the snow with a bottle of maple syrup, making snow ice cream, puffy in their snowsuits like when they were toddlers, and it was such a magical moment, I stood in knee-high snow and reveled in the moment of the two of them together, laughing and talking and tasting snow. Right here, right now, this moment.

And I keep telling them, my greatest wish for them is that they have each other the way I have my sisters.

My sisters know me better than anyone because we know each other’s hearts. We cheer each other on, believe the best in each other always, and rush to any one of us who needs help. We can talk for years about important world issues like losing ten pounds, cutting bangs, and shopping mania, and we are also first responders to each other when one of us calls sobbing. I can say whatever crazy thing enters my mind, and my sisters will fall on the floor laughing, and then say something to make me fall on the floor laughing.

And on the Titanic, they would throw the lifeboat right to me.

And in the Upside Down, they would put on their Hazmat suits and march in to save me every time.

And it’s hard to remember when I feel like I’m being attacked on all sides at all times. So, a good thing to do is to stop, go outside, and breathe. Another good thing to do when I don’t know what to, is to jump and chant: “Crystal Ball! Please tell me!”

If I had a crystal ball, I think it would tell me to stay in my yummy world, that light and love and laughter, my sisters, my kids and my own clear heart will blast out the yuck every time.