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Today is Pearl Harbor Day.
It also would have been my sister Linda’s fifty-eight birthday, but she she passed away on November 30, 2001, one week from her fifty-first.
Growing up, it had always been Momma, Linda, my other sister Jean, and myself. Dear old Dad left when I was three, the oldest of the kids, never to be seen or heard from again.
In the late ninties, Linda started to get sick and after a three year battle with breast cancer, she finally succumbed.
It showed up and she first had a mastectomy, then went through all the treatments, chemo and such. That beat it back for awhile.
Then it showed up in her lungs. The doctors said it was still the breast cancer, that it had just migrated, leaving a number of tumors. Again, she went through the proscribed treatments and it seemed to work.
Then later the headaches started. Tumors were found on her brain and, once again, treatments started. She went through a lot, but seemed to get better once more.
After the fact, I found out she never felt right after this bout. She still had headaches, but the only one she told was Jean, she didn’t want to worry Momma, me, or her daughter and grandchildren.
Then, in the space of thirty days, Linda went from walking to walking with a cane to walking with a walker to a wheel chair. X-rays showed a number of tumors all up and down her spinal cord. Treatments started once again.
Our family has always looked out for each other. We took her for the radiation treatments almost every day. Momma and her sister started spending alternate nights with Linda, Jean during the days. Linda’s daughter and I were both working, so we stayed on days off to relieve the others.
There finally came a day when the doctors said nothing was working. Things were steadily getting worse. The treatments were stopped on a Tuesday.
The following Friday morning I was talking on the phone with Linda before I went to work. She asked what time Jean was coming up. I already knew Jean was planning to take the day(she was wore out herself and had business she needed to take care of), but I said I didn’t know. I’d find out, wished her bye, and immediately called Jean to tell her maybe she should go.
I truly believe my sister knew the time was at hand. She sent Momma home before Jean arrived and, later in the afternoon, she told her daughter to take the two grandsons out for some shopping.
She knew Momma or her daughter wouldn’t be able to handle it, so she wanted them away from the house.
Then, on November 30th, 2001, with Jean by her side, Linda gave up the battle and went to a better place.
I still miss her.