Hurricane Jane

    Yesterday morning, my sister turned to leave the house, but paused a moment and turned to face my mother. “Three years ago today,” she murmured, and nearly began to cry as she hurried out to her car.

    For the life of her, my mother couldn’t recall what anniversary it was. Granted my sister’s notable instability that occurred three years ago, she was tremendously worried over what she might do. The fateful drive to the hospital, clutching my sister’s slashed arm together had taken place in December. She wasn’t committed to a mental health facility until July. What had happened between those two dates? What did March 18th, 2005 mean?

    It wasn’t until later that evening that my mother realized and came to tell me. On March 18th, 2005, I had been called out of class by a tearful sister and lead to a side-closet of the guidance office where some of our collective friends sat, all in tears. I couldn’t understand why they were all so sad until my sister choked out two little words through her tears. “Sarah died.”

    Sarah Jane Parchenski had been suffering malignant cancer for over a year. When the doctors had told her she had two weeks, we had been at the hospital, clutching her freezing hand and sobbing together until we were nearly sick. She lived another four months after that. In that time, she named only two things she really, really wanted. The first was to marry her boyfriend, the second to graduate from high school. The ceremony was small, but beautiful. The tears were ones of joy, and for a couple hours at the reception we all forgot how sick she was as she danced with her husband, to have and to hold, for however brief a time.

   “Now we’re expecting a healing,” Sarah’s mom had told him. “So you’d better be prepared to stay with my girl for a very long time.”

    “God, I hope so,” was his only answer. And he stayed by her side until she passed away shortly after.

    Sarah was one of the most incredible people I had ever known. She was delightfully unorthodox, indefeatably bubbly, and loving in every aspect. She was honest and benign until that which she was treasured was threatened, at which point she could whip herself into such a mood as to send the offender running.

   I remember once a friend of hers I hadn’t known was in emotional agony and set to run away from home. Instead of standing back and watching her go, Sarah ran with her. They aimed for Canada and made it nearly to the border before the police brought them home. Sarah had no reason to run away, but she would never leave a friend to face pain alone. In return, we didn’t leave her.

   She never asked much. Perched on the hospital bed they moved into her house, we would sit and play video games or watch bad movies for hours on end. Once while visiting our house, she and my sister got the odd idea to make themselves pants. I wasn’t present to find how the idea generated, but while my sister carefully followed the pattern, Sarah Jane just threw out a bolt of fabric, flopped down on it, and drew her outline with a marker. She argued that she wanted to try it her way, cut the pattern out, and sewed it all up.

   As it turns out, Sarah Jane’s pants fit better than my sister’s so-carefully planned pair did.

    Sarah was one of the remarkable kinds of people who can be friends with both sisters and never offend either. Belligerent as we are to one another, my sister and I found a way to ’share’ Sarah. She spent most of her time with my sister, but spent much of her time praising me or drawing pictures in my honor. She called me the “Electronic Goddess” because once (and only once) I managed to fix her television. She even inked a portrait of me throwing lightning. Another picture she gave me just before she passed away featured a magnificent angel holding the hand of a tiny little girl wearing a hospital bracelet.

    She encouraged me to always write, no matter how discouraged I got. Someday, I’m going to dedicate a beautiful, breath-taking book to her. For now, I offer this rambling eulogy.

    You’re not forgotten, Sarah Jane. We did, and always will love you.