A woman loses her younger sister, a paramedic, to cervical cancer.
This is Diane?s story, as told by Jeanette Geraci. Our ?Opening Our Hearts? stories are based on people?s real-life experiences with loss. By sharing these experiences publicly, we hope to help our readers feel less alone in their experience of grief and ultimately, aid them in their healing processes.?In this post, we tell the story of a woman who has lost her sister.
Credit: Chris Wagner for Wikipedia
My sister Marty and I grew up in Dallas.? Our mother stayed at home and started drinking every day around 5 PM. We routinely found her on the tile floor of our shower, toppled over. Frozen TV meals were made for dinner almost every night of the week. ?Throughout her life, our mother married three emotionally disturbed men, the second of whom tried to commit suicide.
When Marty married her high school sweetheart, she decided that she would not, at any cost, drag our childhood?s dysfunction into the new family she so desperately wished to create. ?And create a family she did ? rapidly at that.? She had four daughters in succession, including a set of beautiful twin girls.? Marty raised her daughters in Alabama and cherished them completely.
When the girls went to college, Marty went back to school to become a paramedic.? Her husband, a conservative man, didn?t like this. ?Bitter and disgruntled, he had an affair with a younger woman. ?Their marriage quickly dissolved.
The only life Marty had ever known was essentially obliterated and her girls had all left home. ?The only man she had ever loved was unfaithful to her and ultimately left. Yet Marty never crumbled. ?Instead, she did the opposite ? she founded a regional paramedic service with a colleague in Alabama.
?After what amounted to a difficult surgery, the doctors believed they had removed the cancer entirely?but they didn?t.?
Marty lived for five years after she was initially diagnosed with cervical cancer.? When her doctors performed her colonoscopy, they discovered a malignant mass the size of a dinner plate. ?After what amounted to a difficult surgery, the doctors believed they had removed the cancer entirely?but they didn?t.
Marty was a religious woman and when she found out that she was going to die, she remained unwaveringly positive.? She didn?t fear death ? didn?t view it as ?the final frontier,? so to speak ? and was certain that she would see her daughters again.? Meanwhile, the girls and I were devastated.? ?Why aren?t people happy for me??? Marty asked, ?I?m going to Heaven.?
Before Marty died, she made sure that her will was in place.? She invited me, her girls and a total of eleven grandchildren over for a Labor Day party. That day, she allowed us to choose whatever we wanted from her house.? Throughout her last summer on Earth, Marty made sure to attend all of her grandchildren?s dance performances and sports games, no matter how exhausted she felt.
?Why aren?t people happy for me?? Marty asked, ?I?m going to Heaven.?
Marty passed away surrounded by everyone she loved ? me, her daughters, her grandchildren. She even had a long, tearful reconciliation with her ex-husband.
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After her funeral, we had a buffet back at the house.? Many people came, some of whom her girls and I had never met before.? It was only then that we found out the stories behind the many lives Marty had saved over her career as a paramedic, including that of ?The Miracle Boy?: a child who was practically decapitated.? Marty held the boy?s near-severed head onto his neck until an emergency helicopter descended to his rescue.? She boarded the helicopter with the boy and talked to him throughout the flight, until they reached the hospital. ?By the grace of whatever benevolence exists in the Universe ? including, but perhaps not limited to my sister?s loving hands ?? he survived.
I?ve heard it said that often, one dies the way one lived. In Marty?s case, this saying absolutely applies. Marty lived bravely and with integrity.? In the same vein, she died with dignity and courage, unafraid to look death square in the eye as it approached her ? unafraid to do the legwork to prepare for it, to leave her loved ones with a sense of closure and completion.
I miss Marty terribly.? In spite of her being younger by four years, she was always my confidante. ?We were as different as could be, not agreeing on matters of politics or religion. All the same, I trusted that woman more than anyone else on the planet.? Sometimes, when I get the urge to tell her something, I still pick up the phone and dial her number before I remember?a split second later?that she?s gone.
I?ve come to accept that Marty is no longer here, but my faith isn?t like my sister?s. I?m not nearly as confident as she was that someday, we?ll meet again on the other side.
Before Marty died, she promised me that she?d send me an unambiguous sign that she?s doing okay ? that there?s reason for me to have faith. ?And I know that Marty always wanted so badly for me to believe.
As far as I can tell, no such sign has been delivered ? but I?m still waiting.
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Source: http://blog.sevenponds.com/opening-our-hearts/%E2%80%A8dying-the-way-she-lived
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