April 28, 2019

Today is my sister's birthday.  She is 79.  This is how I think of her, young.  Sweet and kind with dark red hair, freckles and blue eyes.  This photo is the best I could retouch to get some of the color back into my sister's face.

Shortly after this photo was taken in the fall of 1956, sister dropped out of high school.  She was a junior.  She married the boy she says she fell in love with when she was 8 or so years old.  They are still married.  Sister has had a challenging life.  A gifted athlete that was given up for the role of wife and mother.

By 25 she was the mother of three children she loved and still does.  Following her husband's job the year before they had moved to Oklahoma.  Our Mom never forgave her for 'moving those 3 grandkids away.'  In the summer of 1965 during a visit back to our parents, life took a dramatic change.

Sister was losing her peripheral vision in her left eye.  She made an appointment with the family's trusted Dr. Charley.  He told Sister it was more than he could deal with and set up an appointment with Dr. Casey in Dallas.  Within days, Sister was in an operating room having a procedure on her brain.  Brain surgery was still in the learning stages.  A dye injected for the myelogram caused a reaction and sister lost the sight in her left eye.

Diagnosis was water on the brain.  A tube was inserted and run underneath her skin and muscles from the brain to the stomach.  Sis was horribly ill for weeks on end.  Half her head had been shaved.  Standing caused pressure changes that were followed by headaches 10 x worse than migraines.  She spent the rest of the summer with our folks or our oldest sister.  Eventually she and the kids went back to Oklahoma as it was time for the kids to go to school.  Her neighbors helped with the kids.

A move to a different town started a new phase for sister.  She began working in the grade school kitchen as a cook.  She studied and passed her GED along the way.  All while being a mom and wife.  Another move was required as her husband changed jobs.  Some point along the way her husband felt the call to become a minister.  Now she was the pastor's wife bringing another level of responsibility.

Her job moved with them.  She would eventually be looked to for leadership and be rewarded repeatedly for her excellent work.  The work was hard and required lots of lifting.  In addition to being a pastor's wife, a school cook, she began hanging wallpaper and cleaning offices for extra money.  This left Sis with back, knee and shoulder issues.  She endured multiple surgeries on her shoulder, back, neck and knees.  All the while giving freely of her time serving the the church for which her husband was the pastor.

She supported each of her children as two had marriages to fail.  The third's wife was killed in an auto accident leaving an 18 month old.  She helped care for that child, too.  She is still transporting a great grand daughter to and from school.

Her right eye suffered a detached retina.  She has been left with only partial sight in that eye.  And still she came and helped our older sister following both of her recent knee replacements.   When I spoke to her today she was in the middle of making a meatloaf.  She insisted everyone had done lots of stuff, fed her meals and she just wanted to do this for herself.  Today she mentioned dreading the upcoming replacement of the first knee replacement that was done 17 years ago.  I cannot think of anyone else in my life that fits the term, "And still she endured" more than my sister.  And for that she gets rewarded by thing like this great grandson coming to visit today.  If you cannot see the video, he has a blueberry cupcake with a single candle.  He sings Happy Birthday, Grammy.

https://www.facebook.com/leighann63/videos/10156176875020933/

This photo is from a few weeks ago when the same great grandson walked over to visit his Grammy.



My my sweet, kind, beautiful sister have many, many more happy birthdays.