I'm learning that many of you never realized that I have a sister. Wow! I didn't realize. I guess most people wouldn't since she didn't go to school in Pendleton County. She went to Kentucky School for the Deaf in Danville. She is actually my half sister. My father's daughter. Really we both were daddy's girls but she was first as she'd always reminded me. Reminded me, until I cried. I so wanted to be the first. She also made me cry over Davy Jones of the Monkees but that's because he was closer to her age and short like her.
I remember going to her school every fall to move her in. Her friends would play with me and hold me on their laps. The house mother would talk to me and then we'd leave Sissy behind. She never went to school until after Labor Day so she'd go to school with mother at Morgan until then. She'd play on the playground with the kids. I don't remember much more than that. She graduated from high school the same month I finished the first grade. I do recall that when they called the students name, the parents were to stand and that sissy was the only one whose parents were on opposite sides of the room. I wondered why Helen was there and why my mother didn't stand. I just didn't get it.
The picture below is how we got along. Pretty good for a 13 year age difference. It wasn't wise to let us go to the mall together. Mall security would follow us around. We couldn't help it. Sometimes I'd misunderstand her and when we'd figure it out, we couldn't stop laughing. (I mean really. If you are reminded you needed to by rubber bands for your kids braces and you point at condems, what was I supposed to think?) She could make me laugh until I thought I'd pee myself and then she'd make me laugh more. Linda never grew beyond 4'11" and had to shop the petite section. On one of our excursions to the Florence Mall, she decided to look for a winter coat. There wasn't much in the petite section so she went to the "other side" and tried on a pea coat. You know, those wool coats that sailors wear? I nearly died. It almost came to her knees and the sleeves came to the ends of her fingers. She thought it would work. I laughed until I cried and then I noticed the sales crew staring at us. We made a fast getaway and left the darned coat behind. We thought we were going to the pokey.
She hated dresses even though nearly every picture I have of her, she's in a dress. I guess my mother practiced adding insult to injury. Sunday mornings weren't fun. Linda would come out of her room dressed in pants for church. Mother would fuss. Dad would go to the car. Mother would get Dad out of the car. He'd go in the house and Linda would come stomping out wearing a dress. The air was thick.
She excelled in sports. If walking was a sport, I'd fail miserably. But not Linda. She was game. She loved to roller skate as a kid and play ball, all kinds of ball. Mr. Cecil Hellard was hers and daddy's next door neighbor for awhile and he'd pitch for her to hit over at the Falmouth School ball field. Mr. Hellard would ask me about her every now and then when I was in high school and he'd always tell me she was a good ballplayer.
She was often misunderstood by the hearing world. She never felt handicapped because of being deaf. One time she and my brother-in-law flew back to Chicago, where they lived. I think it was when they were moving back to Kentucky and I went with Daddy to take them to the airport. Daddy had the attendant mark her ticket "Deaf". That didn't go over well. I thought for a minute we were going to have to knock her out and put her on the darned plane or buy her another ticket. She didn't like the concept of the cochlear implant. That was for people that didn't like the deaf culture or deaf people and didn't want to be a part of if. It was for their parents and not for them. There was nothing wrong with being deaf, she'd say. And there wasn't. It was a way of life and it is. It is a very close knit community.
Sometimes she'd go AWOL. We'd let it go, she'd show up eventually. I know Daddy worried. When I worked at the IRS, he used to have me hunt down a deaf person and try to get a message to her to call home. The thing with the deaf culture is that they all know one another and they all keep in touch. It's not hard to find a deaf person that's missing if you try. They will protect each other though so you can't be threatening. So, anyway, I walked down the hall to a unit that had a deaf lady in it. Little did I know that in a few years I would work with her daughter at the middle school in Grant County where she was an interpreter. The lady's first husband was in my brother-in-law's brother's class at KSD, I also later learned. She wouldn't own up to knowing my sister but said she knew of her and probably knew someone that did. Linda called the next day. She was fine. I bought the gal a coffee and a doughnut courtesy of Daddy.
Sissy, as I always called her, isn't doing so well. She had a stroke Thursday and while in the hospital she went into cardiac arrest three times. She is in a coma. We await more test results tomorrow and then we likely face big decisions. True to form, none of us had heard from her in quite awhile. She last showed up on my doorstep (unannounced, of course; that's how the deaf do it) about three years ago. I think I was the last of the family to see her. I wrote her for awhile but Linda was never a letter writer and neither am I. She was more of a "let's sit down and chat" person. I try but I stumble through sign language. She was patient. She was an excellent lip reader so you had to be careful what you said if you didn't want her to know and you could never turn your back on her and talk. She would dump all the ice in an ice tray down your pants if you did. I've tried to outrun her many times. I bought her a cell phone to text me, but she refused; made me take it back. She promised she would take computer classes. There was an organization offering classes to deaf people and if you completed the course you got to keep the computer. She didn't do that either.
Got home about an hour ago. I'm really tired, emotionally spent, and beside myself. We met with the neurologist today at four. There was no change from yesterday in Linda's EEG. Although I hate trying to find where I'm going at Central Baptist, I must say they are "johnny on the spot" with interpreters. We have had a few over the past several days and they have been accommodating, patient, and understanding. It is a tough time and it's really tough if you don't understand what's going on. I will be forever grateful for this service.
Today my (ex) brother-in-law, Matt, and his brother, Chuck, came. I am glad they made the trip from Leslie County. As I write this, they still have two hours more to go before they reach home. They should get home about midnight. They stayed with me and made sure I found my car when we left. I am glad to have had them both with me. I felt the weight of the decision we made and it was heavy. Since the hospital made me "next of kin", I had the final say in the course of action but could never have made that decision without being in agreement with the nephews, Wayne and Jamie, and my brother-in-law. We have talked more in the past few days than we have in years. I felt Matt's support and I really needed to feel it. I needed to feel we all agreed and that the decision was the right thing. Matt will always be my favorite, albeit only, brother-in-law. I was ten when he and Linda married. I hardly remember life without him. I would walk to the edge of the earth and back for him.
Thanks from all of us for your thoughts, prayers, and the outpouring of love we have received over the past few days. I will keep you posted. (The picture was a school picture and my best guess is that she was in in the second or third grade. She was always so small it's hard to judge.)
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