A Memorable Moment
Written in December 2005
Every happy moment I’ve ever had with my sister is now a memorable moment to me, now that she’s left me forever, even the smallest and shortest of them, and even those I can barely remember. When I think of those happy moments, I still cry. No matter how happy the happy moments with my sister were when we had them together, they end up making me sad and I start crying. I think it is because I know they will always be just memories, and I will never have another new one with her, because my sister has left me forever.
I’m thinking about her visit with us last summer. She was so happy when I asked her if she would like to visit Old Sacramento. She had actually stopped her chemo to come out to visit us. She planned it with her doctor so she would not be sick from the chemo here in California. I did appreciate that. I can’t remember telling her but I know I did.
One thing about my sister’s illness is that she never really looked sick. Her skin was soft and smooth. The color of her skin was a light brown like coffee mixed with milk. Her skin had a glow to it like the advertisements of Cover Girl. She was absolutely beautiful. I told her that all the time but for some reason once she got cancer she stopped believing she was beautiful.
But I think the day we went to Old Sacramento she felt beautiful. I can see her shining precious dark brown eyes with that happy smile when we asked her if she would like to go to Old Sacramento. Excited about the idea, she said that sounds good to me. She got so excited that she called everyone back home bragging about where we were going. To get ready, she started preparing her clothes. She went about it as if she was going out on her first date. She chose especially nice clothes for that day. She wore a pair of pants, orange Capris. At the end of the pant legs there were embroidered ruffled flower designs. The Capri pants had a matching tank top with embroidered braids around the collar and at the end of the sleeves. She wore her nice white sandals to match the Capri outfit. Her feet were a little swollen so she wore the sandals like flip-flops. She looked young and vibrant. That is exactly how she was all the time. I wore a similar outfit. We loved to look good. And we did.
The drive to old Sacramento was comfortable for her even though she had a lot of back pain from her cancer. It was a perfect day. The sun was bright. The baby blue sky looked peaceful. The temperature was just right in the low eighties. We enjoyed that hour drive to Sacramento. The sunroof of the car was open. The fresh air came rushing into the car. We turned the music up real loud and chatted about how beautiful California is, its hills, farms, grass and even its cars. I can still see clearly how she sat in the back seat just enjoying the scenic route and the fresh breeze from the sunroof.
We had a wonderful time in Old Sacramento. We shopped. We stopped in almost every store. She was having so much fun. She enjoys shopping especially in those stores that have lots of trinkets. My sister loved jewelry. Every jewelry store we saw in Old Sacramento -- and there are many -- we had to search for special jewelry. Sometimes we spent over thirty minutes in a store. I would become irritated and impatient with my sister looking at the same piece of jewelry for so long. She would look at a pendant, a ring, and then a necklace, and spent forever trying to decide if she wanted them or not. Today I would give anything to spend as long as she wanted in any of those jewelry stores.
We continued to shop around until we were all dying of hunger. My sister would have still shopped if we had left it up to her. But we convinced her to look for a place to eat. We settled on a place called Anthony’s. That place attracted us because it was busy, and they had a live Jazz band. It was below street level, and we could look down on the scene. There were candles on each table, and the drink glasses looked nice and big. We decided to descend down to Anthony’s for a snack and drinks.
We took our time, and my sister did her usual trick with the food. She is never satisfied with what she gets. This time she got a ham and cheese sandwich. When it came it looked like a masterpiece to me with thick slices of ham and cheese and the plate was beautifully garnished with parsley. My sister gave it a brief inspection and said this is unacceptable. This is not fresh ham and they didn’t cut it right she said. So it went back and she never ate anything.
After the rest of us were finished eating, and she had a drink that also had to be made over, it was clear what we had to do. Head back to the jewelry stores. Again my sister took her time going over pins, pens, stickers, and trinkets. We were getting tired for real now, and it was almost becoming a chore, but she was still having a ball. And finally after a long debate with the jeweler, she decided on a tiny button earring. It was nice and sparkled. But it was clearly costume jewelry and couldn’t cost more than just a buck or two. And then my sister did something I’ll never forget. With a big gesture she took her wallet out of her pocket book and without blinking an eye, and as if she was paying for the most precious piece of jewelry, she pulled out a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, peeled one of them off the stack and handed it to the jeweler. And the jeweler, catching on immediately, took it with equal seriousness rung out the bill, and handed her back a stack of twenties, ones and some change. And then he carefully wrapped the earring and handed it to her. My sister smiled one of her biggest smiles that I’ve ever seen and that I will remember forever.