Three weeks with my brother - Nicholas Sparks [124]
“Great,” Dana would say. “I’d love to see you.”
Micah would always meet me at the airport, and we fell into a routine that didn’t change. Micah and I would stop at Zelda’s, a gourmet pizza parlor in downtown Sacramento, and share a pizza and beers. We’d talk for hours; about writing and his business, about our sister, and we’d share memories of our childhood. We’d laugh and shake our heads, and grow suddenly quiet as we thought about mom or dad, or what was happening to our sister. I’d sleep at Micah’s the first night, and in the morning he’d drive me out to the ranch to spend the rest of my time with Dana.
On my first visit, my sister continued to pretend that nothing was wrong. She’d cook and clean, and ask if I wanted to help Cody and Cole with their homework while she napped. We’d have dinner and visit until she grew tired and finally went to bed.
But the progress of her tumor was unstoppable, and little by little there was no disguising it. On each successive visit, her naps began to grow longer and she went to bed earlier. By February, she’d begun to limp; her tumor was slowly paralyzing the left side of her body. The next time I visited, her left arm had grown weaker as well; a week after that, the left side of her face began to lose its expressive ability. Where she’d once occasionally slurred her words, the slurring now occurred with greater frequency. Abstract comprehension grew even more difficult.
My baby sister was slowly losing her battle, but even then, she somehow believed that she would make it.
“I’ll be okay,” she’d say. “I’m going to see Cody and Cole grow up.”
Now, however, when she made comments like those, it was all I could do not to cry. I was an emotional wreck in those first couple of months of 2000. Torn between seeing Dana and spending time with my new baby, I woke each day thinking I should be somewhere else. If I was holding Landon, I’d wish I was in California holding my sister. And when I held my sister, I wished I was back in North Carolina, holding my son. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to balance it all, and I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. I barely slept, tears would suddenly spring to my eyes in unexpected moments, and as I forced myself through the day-to-day motions of my life, I was more exhausted than I’d ever been.
When you know that someone close to you is going to die, there’s a natural tendency to want to spend as much time with them as you can. As I mentioned, it was a constant struggle to maintain the balance between my current family and the family I’d grown up with. But even if I’d wanted to, there was another reason why I didn’t stay in California. My visits—though everyone understood my reasons for coming—changed the dynamics of my sister’s house. Guests, even family guests, always alter domestic dynamics. And remember, my sister had a new family of her own as well.
Dana had married into a wonderful situation. Bob’s father lived on the ranch in a house a stone’s throw away; so did Bob’s stepmother and half-brother. Bob’s mother and stepfather lived less than ten minutes down the highway. So did Bob’s brother. All of them loved my sister, had opened their hearts to her, had accepted her into their lives. And each of them was struggling, just as Micah and I were. And maybe, I’ve since come to believe, their struggle was even worse than ours.
As my sister’s tumor progressed and she lost energy to do everything she’d once done, various members of Bob’s family moved in and out of the house, quietly filling the void. Someone would always be there, doing the dishes, washing laundry, helping with the homework. My sister, in her time of need, was never left alone.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I visited with my sister as much as I thought I could, not how much I wanted to. I did this so that Bob’s family would have the chance to spend time