Family Resemblances

I am my father's daughter. I may resemble my mother facially but everything else about me screams out my dad. Look at Dad, two years ago at Mike's wedding. Yes, I have cut my mother out of the picture, not because of any funky family dynamic, but because she doesn't like how she looks in it. Look at how healthy and robust Dad was then. Who would think that less than two years later, he would be dead? God and I are still working that out between us.

To the right is me on the same day. You can tell it was toward the end of the reception from the sheen on my face and the dazed look in my eyes, but the eyebrows look GREAT, don't they?. I have to admit, even though I battled against it, offering Mike and Jen a cash sum to elope somewhere, this was one of the happiest days of my life. The "kids" made all the arrangements themselves, everything went off seamlessly and they were so incredibly happy! Just take a look at the smile on my son's face. This is the same smile he had when I went out to meet Brendan. There may be nothing I love more than seeing that ecstasy in my son's eyes. Thanks, Jen, for both occasions. : ) (Soak up the shot of me in make-up because it does not happen often!)

As I said, I am the picture of my mother facially, but my temperament is 100% Dad. Dad was a dreamer and a poet. He liked to work hard and to work with his hands. He liked to 'tinker.' He was happiest when he was intellectually challenged, especially pleased if the end result of his work would be something of benefit to someone. Dad put many hours' work into various electrical jobs for the little Presbyterian church nearby. I can't remember if he received any money for those jobs. What I do recall is that the local farmer who was Deacon of the church has made sure my parents are kept in potatoes, corn, strawberries ever since. My mom hopes the tradition will continue even though Dad's gone. Knowing the farmer, I think it will.

The strangest and most poignant resemblance in the family is that between Michael and his Aunt Lisa. My sister, Lisa, was born in 1965, when I was 8 and-a-half years old. I remember my sister from day one. I remember my father taking us to my grandparents' house the evening before, can remember Dad coming back in the early morning and taking my brother and me out to breakfast. I think I had 'dippy' eggs. (Dippy Cheryl-related comments may well be deleted ; ) Dad was so happy. I don't think he even ate. All I remember him having was coffee. I remember wondering if he only had enough money to feed us and that's why he wasn't eating. This is a precious memory, one of the fondest of my childhood. Lisa was a beautiful baby. You can see a few pictures of her through my Flickr badge. She was also a good baby. I don't remember much crying. I loved her like the Dickens. We all did.

Lisa was possibly the most beautiful toddler I've ever seen. She was so photogenic. She loved the camera and loved to ham it up. She was precocious. Everyone loved her and she knew it and bloomed because of it. She became a frisky pre-schooler, a gangly child, a willowy teenager. She had a crooked back. Lisa was, at 5'9", a twin giant to my father's 6'3". The rest of us were normal-sized. I was tallish for a woman at 5'7". My brother was smallish for a man at 5'8" and Mom was positively short...5'2". Both Lisa and I have the long legs of our father's family and the high waist of our mother.

Lisa had scoliosis that required surgery when she was 15 years old. My son was a baby at the time, his father and I had recently separated for the first time. I had begun to consider (albeit a little late) career choices. I had considered paralegal and nurse. When I saw the interaction of the doctors and nurses at AI duPont Institute (now "Hospital") in Delaware, I knew I could become a nurse. I needn't be a handmaiden to do so. I could do it with character and wisdom and garner respect. I have.

(Interesting side note: AI duPont is a wonderful hospital in Wilmington. At the time of my sister's surgery, their focus was only orthopedic surgery and that was primarily on children. In the last two decades, it has transformed into a full-fledged pediatric specialty facility in Delaware, our second-smallest state. Not too shabby. And I hear the're a great place to work, too.)

Lisa babysat Mike for me while I was in nursing school for three years, working nearly full-time all the while. I don't know what I would have done without her help. Lisa and Michael used to play construction workers in Michael's sandbox. I wish I had a photo of that sandbox, built for my son by my father, but I don't think we do. A sandbox with a lid to keep the neighborhood cats out. Painted dark brown, lid perched atop as a roof, if you chose; open to the sky as you wanted. They would play with Michael's little construction vehicles. We didn't have much then but Mike and Lisa knew how to make-do. Their curiosity, playfulness and creativity were boundless.

Lisa would be "Mack" and Michael would be "Bud." Only Lisa could say "Bud" with the required panache. A very throaty and slightly Southern, "Buuuud!" Sometimes, after they were done playing and had put the lid back down on the sand box, they'd carry their construction conversation into the house and treat us all. They loved each other so, those two. We all did.

Lisa was walking along the side of the road on a November evening in 1984. She was walking back to a friend's house after using the pay phone outside the Wawa down the road. She and her boyfriend had left their keys in the friend's house and needed to get them if they were going to go out bowling. I wish there had been cell phones then. Life might be different now.

Kamara was driving home from work. She was 20 years old and had her four year-old daughter in a car seat in the back. We can only speculate as to what happened. The Medical Examiner at the time, Dr. Speth, has given me the most comfort. The plain and simple is that my sister's boyfriend turned around in her Mustang just in time to see Lisa falling or rolling and a car driving by. Bill (was that his name?) got out and went to her. I have no recollection of how EMS was notified. Bill may have broken into the friends' home to use the phone. This was at 10:00 on a Monday evening.

Kamara never apologized and never explained. She drove away from the scene in Glassboro to her home somewhere further west in Gloucester County. She, her mother or someone later called the Glassboro Police Department to find out if there had been an accident in the area that evening. I think her mother called her lawyer before driving Kamara to the police department. Kamara first said she thought she'd hit a deer. I'm fuzzy on whether she then changed her story to that of being so horrified and frightened by what she'd done she didn't respond rationally. It might have happened that way and feels right. We still do not know why she was driving six feet over the right-hand line, as the ME believes she was. She never explained.

Dr. Speth told me my sister died of "hyperextension injuries of the head and neck." He explained to me that it was an injury to the brain stem and that, although my sister had agonal respirations and heartbeat on the arrival of EMS, she had basically "died instantly" as her neck was snapped suddenly back on impact and that she felt no pain thereafter. I wonder when she lost her 21 grams. No one can tell us that. Dr. Speth believes my sister was hit from behind by the very center of the front grill of Kamara's car and was carried on the hood for 50 feet before she fell or was thrown off. Bill didn't catch any of the impact so we'll, once again, never know for sure. Kamara never explained. She thought she'd hit a deer.

They were not able to obtain/maintain an adequate airway on Lisa in the ten minutes it took to get to the closest hospital. This is the hospital in which my grandmother and grandfather died, affiliated with the oncologist I went to for Dad's appointments. Had Dad not had us and hospice, he probably would also have died there. She arrived at the hospital around 10:10. The phone rang at our home around 11:30. As someone who usually worked until 11, I was still awake and answered. I tried to convince the Glassboro police officer that, as her considerably older sister, I'd be more than happy to spare Lisa and my parents and take care of Lisa's problem myself rather than wake the folks. The officer was strangely insistent. This was unusual. South Jersey was still very much a big small town in 1984.

I packed Michael up and drove to meet his other grandparents. I picked up my brother and drove madly to the hospital. Lisa lived for about 3 hours after the accident. We had to say good-bye in the Emergency Room with all her IV's and other tubes still attached. We were not allowed to take her clothes home. They said the wonderfully healthy organs my sister carried were not eligible for organ donation because of 'internal injuries" so only her corneas were donated. (Dr. Speth's autopsy revealed two healthy, normal, undamaged lungs, a liver, spleen, pancreas, two normal, perfectly functional kidneys and yards of pristine skin and other tissue. None of this was used. Thankfully, two people each received one of Lisa's corneas and were again able to see family and loved ones. I hope they did.)

They had tested my sister for drugs and alcohol. She was negative. How that happened, I don't know, because Lisa liked a nice joint on a fairly regular basis by then but she tested clean. My mother required Valium or Vistaril or something. We all cried, in the same room though not together. We all loved her. She was the special bright axle to which our four wheels were connected. We were merely the spokes, Lisa was what held it all together and made it go.

They never tested Kamara. Because she had left the scene, it was possible that she could have had a drink or smoked some pot following rather than prior to the accident. The police told us that when we inquired about the seemingly cursory investigation. Kamara never told us what happened so we don't know if she was drunk or high when she hit my sister, inflicting her fatal injuries. She didn't explain.

We attended the court proceeding where she received a $270 fine and lost her driving privileges for six months. We had wanted "death by auto" or something...anything, our attorney didn't think it was possible. Dr. Speth testified. Afterward, we were discussing the case with our attorney on the steps outside the courthouse when Kamara's mother came up to us. I don't know if she heard our plaintive rants about the unfairness of it all or not. It didn't matter. Her mother pointed out to us that Kamara had been affected by this as well, that she would have to live with this the rest of her life. My response to her was something along the lines of "at least Kamara will have a 'rest of her life' which was more than she'd left my sister.

Kamara had, of course, no assets. She was a young single mother working in a minimum wage or service sector job. We heard a rumor that her family was politically connected in Glassboro, perhaps with the police department. It was only a rumor we heard. We have no idea if it's true. It would have done no good to sue (maybe that was the talk her mother overheard) Kamara. Kamara walked away and we never heard another word. She never explained. She never apologized. I hope she is living with this every day of her life, at least until she tells us what happened.

I believe Dr. Speth. Dr. Speth was a crime scene investigator. He had been on scene. He had photographic documentation. My sister's one sneaker was found 70 feet from the point of impact on the road. There were tire marks on the pavement. There was physical evidence. The damage to the car was consistent with impact pretty squarely in front of the hood ornament area. I can clearly see the utter horror on a 20 year-old's face as she hears and feels an impact then returns her gaze to the road from attending to her child to find a 19 year-old straddling her hood like a prize buck. Perhaps staring accusingly in the windshield. I can only imagine how that must have felt. I may have had an impulse to run but I never would have. I would have stayed. I would have tried to help. I would have overcome my fear and revulsion and helped. I would have apologized. I hope Kamara does remember.

But, back to the point of the compensation God sometimes offers when she really fucks up your life. My son.

My father had dark brown eyes, as did my sister. My mother, brother and I all have hazel eyes. Hazel eyes are so common. My sister's brown eyes were so beautiful. My son has his aunt's brown eyes. His squish up when he laughs, like his mother's, but they are a deep brown like her sister's. Michael has brown eyes although both his parents have hazel eyes. Go figure God, huh?

As I've been foisting my Granny pictures (Another attempt at compensation, Oh Mighty One? Think you can do it twice?) onto anyone I can, I've had a number of people comment that Michael looks like me. I've never seen the resemblance. He doesn't look like his father, either. (No, you can't have any child support back, Bob.) You might scroll up now to compare. Okay, there's some similarities but it's nothing really striking. It's not like my mother and I, who are so very different otherwise. My son looks like my sister. See for yourself. I've sometimes thought Michael would be/is very much like my mom emotionally. I'm beginning to think he has much more of my father and me in him than any of us suspected.

He looks more like Lisa's son than mine. So his eyes are red in this one rather than brown. Picasa's redeye fix didn't look any better. His hair, though it might not seem so, does have that touch of auburn that Lisa's had. It's a family trait...to Mike from both myself and his father. The long, thin face. The cheebones. The nose. The mouth, at times. It's as if my sister lives on in him. Or is she in the nightingale that's taken up abode across the creek and is singing me off to bed tonight? Or would that be Dad?

I wonder who Brendan will look like. What color will his eyes be when they change from their 'baby' blue? Will he look more like Mike's side of the family than Jen's? Will I once again be staring into the eyes of the sister I loved so much? We all did.

I hope someday Kamara will see fit to apologize...and to explain.

Finished: 2006/04/24 03:00 EST