This story has taken me 11 months to finally sit down and
tell. How appropriate the number 11. It used to be my favourite number, a
number I was always naturally drawn to maybe because it’s parallel well
balanced promise of 1 next to 1. Turns out the number 11 would stand for many
horrific memories in my years to come. 9/11 marked the day of horrific pain for
many of those who lost their families to an ongoing selfish war between the
U.S. and the Middle East. For me 31/7/11 all numbers I was always attracted to
that I used on lottery tickets for years, would be inverted into numbers that
would symbolize terrible loss for me and my family.
No words seem to be the right ones to begin the telling of
this story. It was a dreadful fateful awful painful day. Well for starts
it started out as a new day of promise for me. I had just started a job in
retail hoping to balance my life out while I did some serious soul searching to
figure out what career would swallow me whole and hopefully bring me great joy.
So in this transitional year I decided to spend my days work as a youth worker
at night, which I thoroughly loved and I worked as a fashion advisor during the
day. On that day I was in training. I remember sitting in the training early in
the morning and feeling sick to my stomach. My gut was restless, sleep was not
had the night before, I felt super anxious. All these feelings I assigned to
that training day and meeting new people.
In the midst of my perfectly normal training session was an
eerie out of body experience that overwhelms me even to this day. Before I tell
I want to make something perfectly straight. I do not go to psychics or
mediums, I am a cynic, I do not attend church; believe in greater powers;
divine for water; look to the heavens for guidance.
But on that day I felt a tremendous feeling of loss. I felt
something from within me being yanked out and then surrounding me in an
embrace. It was as if I was being wrapped in an invisible blanket. That blanket
was saying “I love you. Good-bye”. I remember being suddenly overcome with
tears, my lower abdomen felt as if a child had been ripped from my body. In that moment I had no idea what was going
on.
Now let me tell you a bit about my sister. She and I had a
normal healthy relationship filled with sibling rivalry in our youth, leading
to continuous fights in our teenage years, which gave birth to a unique
sisterly friendship that went much deeper than blood. I supported and fought
for her each and every day, while she taught me how to embrace the moment,
accept the unacceptable and let go on my instinctive cynicism.
Now although our love and friendship was strong she was
given the gift of what many psychiatrists have described as an Autism Spectrum
Disorder. In other words, she had a really big bubble. Regardless of that big
protective bubble she has a heart of gold. Her physical space was important to
her, she did not usually understand other people at all, she was unable to
imagine how someone else might think or anticipate what they might do unless it
came down to numbers and strategy. This gift gave her the passion and mind to
play hockey 24/7. She lived, breathed and dreamed of hockey every waking
moment. She gave her all to the sport and to its community. As a triumphant
fundraiser and someone who really did not care or understand what other people
may think she did what she did without every hurting others. She actually did
not know how to hurt people emotionally and mentally, she could hardly wrap her
brain around her own feelings and inner psyche. So her space was big but her
heart reached so far out that you would have never known.
Children were her soft spot. She gravitated towards them as
if they were something so unique, sacred and her idols. She worshipped children
and beamed when the little ones were around her. She trusted them and they trusted her. She
hugged them everytime she saw them, held their hand and taught them how to
walk. She was dedicated to two things in life hockey and children.
I remember I used to admire those children. I wanted to be
them. She was their big sister. She was the cool grown-up who wanted to teach
them everything and loved everything they said and did. I loved watching the
interactions she would have with them. It was her bubble would pop and in they went.
She was my older sister but I protected her as if she was always my own child.
I was never allowed too close to my sister. She once sat on
my feet when I was sleeping in bed and I have always remembered the warmth of
her body. For many years when I was as a little one up to 3 years old I made my
sister share her double bed because I wanted to be next to her. We were close
as sisters but never once did we hug.
That day, I knew that that was what a hug felt like and my
gut screamed that it was a child of mine. When the police officers came into my
house a few hours later and confirmed my hysterical thoughts I knew that what
happened earlier that day was something I would struggle to accept. I wasn’t
ready for good-byes and did not want that to be our first and last hug.
She was an awful driver. My family had prepared for the day
for years. Anything with wheels was not a good choice.
Her first wheels, roller blades had to fall face first into
cement and permanently scar her upper lip. She kept roller blading. I still
shake my head at the memory. Her first bike, she rode it everywhere. I remember
the day I was called home from school, I was in elementary school, they would
not say what was wrong they just said it was a family emergency. The guy who
lived across the street from us our whole childhood years drove by me on my
race home, rolled down the window and asked what was wrong with my sister, he
heard she had gotten into an accident. I was not fit and definitely a chubby
little child but I ran like I was the next Donavan Bailey. My sister was in the
hospital, by the time I was home my mom said they were releasing her with just
some bumps, scrapes, and a bad knee. She limped for the rest of her life after
that accident. Some guy did not look right before he turned left and drove
almost over my sister. The bike saved her and was demolished under the tires of
the car. She kept riding her bike everywhere.
And then she started to drive, later than most, and oh what
fun that was. Car after car she demolished in her own version of monster truck
wars. Each accident was worse than the next. She went under a truck once and it
peeled off the roof of her car, her quick reflex from years of sports saved her
life as she dove down and snuggled up next to her break pads. Year after year
she incurred motor vehicle injuries, increased her insurance until I am pretty
sure she broke the Guinness book of records for the highest car insurance in
Canada. Each car shook when they saw her coming towards them. She had some
pretty damn bad luck when she got behind the car. It was terrifying being so
protective over her and knowing that accident after accident she continued to
drive. I begged her to move to the city where public transportation was readily
available and chosen by many as the preferable mode of transportation over
driving themselves. She just kept driving.
She was also full of heart on the ice but so small, never
anticipated others or could predict what others were about to do. So she was
bashed, crashed, mushed and hit against the boards and ice so many times she
became an illegal player. She dreamt of the big leagues, but they could not get
an insurance policy on her as a player. She had had way too many concussions.
I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine who
is a neurologist now for the W.H.O. who insisted I get my sister in contact
with her so she might be able to study the amount of grey matter that my sister
had accumulated after all her accidents and sports injuries. Surely her brain
was a ticking time bomb, with one more blow likely to end her. She was warned
by referees, trainers, coaches, my parents, doctors and myself that she needed
to move to the bench and dedicate more time to coaching and less to playing.
She started refereeing which she loves and all of us loved as well.
So on that day when the police officers said she was gone.
We all thought it was her driving. My parents were at the cottage and I was in
my apartment. But in union we agreed that her driving and bad luck on wheels
was what would win her life over. But it wasn’t a car accident, it wasn’t a
blow to the head, it wasn’t a sports injury. It was her heart. That heart of
gold ore was not strong enough to protect her against one person her she let
into her bubble. A person that invaded it, refused to leave and stopped her
heart from beating onwards.
This is a story that took my 11 months to tell. A story that
shows how what can kill the most is trust, a big heart and a belief in the good
of others. But that is not the moral she would want told. Her big heart was a
gift; it changed many people’s lives. Her passion and love was what lives on.
Her flag hangs above our heads in the arena where she was a pioneer of women’s
hockey. Where she taught some of our Olympic medal female hockey players how to
skate and play with your head and heart, to achieve gold.
Her memorial was on the rink where I last saw her play in
the summer of 2011. The line-up was out the recreation centre’s doors. The
centre was packed. It was estimated that well over 500 people attended the
ceremony in her memory. Afterwards everything was cleaned up and the ball was
dropped; a game of ball hockey was played in her honor with a blown up picture
of her laughing looking over the game.
Her smile lived on and so too will her generosity and love of the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment