STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ From Me

Feb 13, 2006

Forever With Me

Carol Roach, M.Ed, BA

We are born, we live on this earth for a short period of time, and then we return to our creator.?  My sister is gone now, that is the harsh reality of life.?  But I must believe that the afterlife is a much better place than this earth even, with all its pain and its beauty.?  I must believe it else my sister??™s life and death were in vain.

My sister??™s earthly existence was not a pleasant one.?  As a baby she was fostered out and never had a chance to meet her biological father.?  I remember meeting my sister just once in our childhood.?  My mother took me to visit her.?  I was about 9-years-old, which made her about six.? 

Even though she did not know us, it was evident that her biological family was in her thoughts.?  She showed me her two dolls, the bigger one she called Linda.?  The smaller one she called Carol after me.?  I remember being insulted. The biggest doll should have been named after me; I was the oldest sister.? ? 

As I look back as an adult I now realize the situation she was put into. How was she to know, she had no frame of reference. Her real family was estranged from her.?  Prior to this occasion she never met any of us.?  All she knew was what her new family told her about us.?  Lost on me at the time was the fact that she still cared enough about her family to name her dolls after sisters she longed to know and love. It was her way to incorporate her biological family into a little girl sense of the world.

The events after our brief encounter were foggy.?  I never saw my sister Debbie again.?  My mom never talked about her. Until one day, out of the blue my mom announces that she could not find Debbie. The family moved out of town and did not leave a forwarding address.? 

My childhood was changed forever. One day I had a sister and the next day I didn??™t.?  One day Debbie had a biological family and then the next day she didn??™t.?  I remember feeling a sense of lost yet; though I do not remember it to be a very strong one.

I wonder how Debbie felt all those years??  Did the family tell her they purposely chose to sever all contacts with us? Or did they tell her that we did not want contact with her.?  In some ways I could hardly blame them if they did.? 

My sister Linda and I were children; we had no control over the situation.?  Debbie was a child and neither did she.?  Yet, the pain of feeling rejected would be a scar that would remain with her the rest of her life.?  Deborah Joyce Buckingham ceased to exist.?  Any association with her birth family was lost forever.? 

I wondered about her during my adolescent years and I swore that I would find her some day.?  I never had the chance. I got caught up in my own life, my friends and schooling, subsequent marriage, divorce, and then the death of my beloved grandmother.? 

According to Carl Jung??™s theory, synchronicity explains meaningful coincidences. Was it synchronicity that led Debbie back into our lives, just as another family member departed from this world??  My grandmother passed away in 1980, and Debbie came back. My sister returned to us, only she was no longer Debbie Buckingham.?  She was now Joyce Tremblay.? 

My mother found her.?  She placed an ad in the newspaper and a friend of Joyce??™s saw it.?  My sister responded.?  It then took her years to reintegrate into the family and years to allow the scars to heal.?  She was a person used to rejection; she lived with it all her life.

Joyce returned to our family with a ready made family of her own.?  She had a boyfriend and three children.?  Her oldest son was sixteen-years-old at the time.?  She gave birth to him at the age of sixteen as well.?  He was the product of the union between a teenage girl and her 40-year-old teacher, who incidentally left her when he found out she was pregnant.?  Another rejection in my sister??™s life, another person she loved to leave her world.? 

The relationship with the father of her second child did not last either, and Brigitte the baby, was the product of the union between my sister and her current boyfriend, Germain.?  My sister had gone through a lot of boyfriends and a lot of heartbreak and breakups, but at least she was settled now, she had Germain, her boyfriend, Brigitte their child, and Jean and Patrick from previous relationships.?  The new relationship was stable only; the demons of the past still haunted her.

We watched Joyce struggle throughout the years to integrate within our family and we saw her struggle to maintain a good life for her own little family.?  Joyce loved her man and her children dearly.?  Unfortunately, the family was fraught with troubles.?  They had hardly any money to live on and life was hard.?  The sad part of it was, when you think life can get no worse, it usually does.?  Patrick, her eldest son, committed suicide at the age of 21-years-old.? 

My sister was destroyed.?  She tried to take her own life twice because of it.?  For two full years she remained in a state of depression.?  She cut herself off from her friends and her family.?  But somehow she pulled through. The desire to live once again engulfed her soul.?  She was starting to feel happy again, to embrace life, and to want to live long enough to see her future grandchildren.? 

Just when she ready to embrace the world once again, life played a cruel trick on her. My precious long suffering sister developed bone cancer.?  She suffered for five long years, in pain and agony.? 

My other sister, Linda, my mother, and I were tested as possible bone marrow donors but we were not a good fit.?  Joyce was quickly removed from the national bone marrow transplant list after she suffered a stroke. The doctors claimed she was too far gone to receive treatment.

Yet, she lived on.?  In October our family suffered another terrible blow.?  Joyce had now developed throat cancer.?  We wondered why one defenseless woman should have to go through so much.? 

My sister??™s will to live was strong.?  She underwent three operations since October.?  The first of the three caused her to have another stroke. This one stopped her from speaking and left her paralyzed on the left side of her body.?  She was also rendered blind.? 

We were apprehensive about her undergoing the following two operations at this terminal stage, but my sister insisted.?  I have not met a more courageous woman in my life.?  The doctors preformed a tracheotomy. They placed a voice box in her throat to facilitate speech with the aid of a mechanical devise.?  We were devastated by her condition, but my sister forged ahead; refusing to let go.

Last Sunday my mother visited with Joyce, as she had done every Sunday before that.?  My sister Linda and I could not do it anymore.?  We could not bear to see her that way.?  To be honest, she weighed sixty-eight pounds and no longer looked human.?  She looked like the living dead; something dreamed up for a Hollywood horror film.?  My mom didn??™t care, this was her child. She would be there to comfort her no matter what.

Joyce gave her the best present she ever could.?  When my mother arrived she was sitting up in bed.?  The doctors said that she was completely throat cancer free.?  The last operation and subsequent chemo treatments had worked.?  She could also see again. They were going to do one last operation to seal up her throat.?  They had taken the voice box out because she could speak on her own.? 

Joyce smiled at my mom and said in her own voice ???I love you.???

Those were the last words ever said by my sister.?  On Wednesday Jan 26^th at 9:30 pm, my sister passed away.?  Her life was hard and her illness harder. She was estranged from her biological family for so long, and then taken away from them just as quickly.?  Yet, even in her last days on this earth, she left my mom with the greatest gift of all, the gift of love.

Joyce, you are my sister and my hero.?  I only wish that I could be half the woman that you were.?  You are at peace now my sister, and I rejoice.?  You are pain free and home at last. You are looking over us now from that great home in the sky and I know that you are finally happy for the first time in your life.

I cannot say goodbye, because you will be forever in my heart.?  Love transcends all barriers, for love is eternal and love conquers all.

Carol Roach

winterose@videotron.ca

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A Native of Montreal, Quebec, Carol is a graduate of Concordia, and McGill University.?  She holds a bachelor in psychology and a Masters in counselling psychology.?  Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.?  You can purchase her book: Picking up the Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.?  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.?  Carol??™s second book: Angels Watching Over is currently looking for a home. Stay tuned for details.? 

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If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: http://subs.zinester.com/98907 , or email her directly at winterose@videotron.ca and she will be glad to accommodate you.?  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.

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