A Year Ago

Looking back, a year from today…

A year ago today my phone rang. On the other line, it was my sister. Part of me didn’t jump to reach for the phone because I knew that I was busy and she was probably just calling to tell me something about how she was making some 20 cheese macaroni dish for Thanksgiving Dinner. That’s all she had talked about for the past week. It was either that, or she was calling to convince me to make some special dessert that would take me 5 hours to prepare and would get eaten within 10 minutes.

That was not the case. Vane was on the other like crying uncontrollably. “Something is wrong,” she said.  A  million things kept running through my mind. In situations like these, it was usually me at her end and her coming to help me with whatever I had been going through.

When i was a child I went through something really traumatic which caused me to grow up and have panic attacks. They would happen at the most random times and if there’s anyone out there who has ever had these kind of attacks, you know you can’t control them (hence my blog name…that’s where it comes from if you’re wondering, I don’t like things that control me in negative ways).   It feels like an ocean of emotions from things you’ve kept inside just decide to flood and you can’t control it b/c the force is so strong. The last time I had a panic attack I was 19 and Vane had always been right there next to me, solid as a rock and very in control and she always knew what to do.

This time i was the rock.

That Friday at the hospital the doctors immediately started running some tests on my sister. She had been bleeding profusely and the “C” word just kept coming up all day.  They’d take tests, have her wait, more tests…waiting. Silence. Worry. Anxiety. Over-Analyzing. I was trying to ignore the migraine when my sister said, “I’m scared.”

It took everything I had inside of me to not let any tears release from my tear ducts. I just looked at her and pushed every single doubt, every single negative thought out of my head and said, “You’re going to be fine, I know this in my heart.”

As I sat there, I thought of the time my mom bought my sister rollerblades. My dad had forbade my mother to buy them. We were at the store and Vane kept begging and begging. Finally my mom just gave in. We got home and I walked inside to read some book or other. About 30 minutes later we hear the loudest scream in the world coming from outside. It was my sister. My mom just ignored it and said, “She probably saw a dog or something.” We were both afraid of dogs. My brother came running inside and kept screaming, “She broke it! She broke it!” My mom and i raced outside the door and there was my sister, wearing both her rollerblades, a shocked looked on her face and her right wrist out of her socket. Her roller blade wheel had gotten caught on the keyhole thing those sewer hole’s have on the sidewalk. She fell back, landed on her right arm and broke her wrist. My mom gasped and said, “How did you get up?” Vane started to cry and said, “I used my hand.” She used the same hand to get up and rollerblade to the house. The loud scream we had heard about an minute earlier was her screaming in pain.

She barley cried. The doctor told us she had a high pain tolerance.

Once we were at the bank and my mom told us to stay in the car. As my mom walked into the building, Vane got out of the car and started climbing on the tree outside the bank. I kept telling her to get in the car, of course, she ignored me. She fell out of the tree, landed on her head and started to bleed profusely from an open wound on her head. She ran inside the bank with her hand on her head, my mom came running out holding her and we went to the emergency room.

She barely cried. The doctor told us she had a high pain tolerance.

We would always go to Reynosa, Mexico for the holiday season and for some reason, we always got colds when we would go. The good thing about Mexico is that the pharmacy’s have doctors. One year we went to get a shot so we wouldn’t get sick. When the doctor put the shot on my butt, I cried and whimpered and hollered. I hated needles.

It was Vane’s turn and she wiggled and the needle broke inside her skin. The doctor had to DIG it out. It took 10 minutes.

She barely cried. The doctor told us she had a high pain tolerance.

When I was 17 years old I walked into a tattoo parlor with a friend. Deathly afraid of needles I had made up my mind that I wanted to get a tattoo. The tattoo artist had flown in from New York and I had waited for her to come to Dallas for months. She had designed a tattoo for me. When I had contacted her months before she asked me what kind of tattoo I wanted. I told her I wanted a tattoo of the person I wanted to be. She asked me what that was, I told her I wanted to be a strong person that barely cried, that wasn’t scared to do things and just let go and have fun, someone who would break the rules and didn’t let the thought of pain or hurt hold her back from doing the things she wanted to do. She said, “That’s going to be a little tough.” I told her it wasn’t because I knew a person who was just that. She smiled and said, “Oh really?” I said, “Yes, my sister Vanessa. Her name means butterfly. Design me a butterfly and I want it next to my heart.”

A year ago today, when I was with Vanessa, I kept thinking of all the times she had been strong for me. Of all the times we had gotten in trouble together as kids and she never once let me take full blame. About all the fights we had. I thought of how we were 1000 percent different from each other. I thought of all the goofy phrases she had ever said in her life that became family inside jokes. I thought of how I had to be strong for her this time and I felt that if a feather touched me I would fall over in tears, because I knew that even though it was happening to her, I was probably way more scared and terrified.

But with every single being that was inside of me, I kept being strong because if Vanessa deserved anything at all, it was a rock and that’s exactly what I had to be for her.

That was one of the hardest, draining days of my life. Months to come there were more tests, more questions, but after time…she finally was diagnosed little by little, the “c” word was used less…and way less, and then was gone all together.

The reason that I’m telling you this story is simple. I have so many things to be thankful for. I can sit down with you right now at a cafe with a warm coffee in my hand and talk from sun up to sun down of all the things I’m thankful for in my life.

My brave, strong, amazing sister…is way on top of that list. We are complete opposites.  We fight and we make up.  We go through a lot of things together and sometimes we are each others best friends.  Sometimes we’re each others worst critics.  If I have a question and I need an honest answer, no one knows me like my sister does and she’ll answer my questions even if the answer is not what I want to hear.  This year in particular, we’ve experienced something new.  She works with me in my photography and has helped me make this idea I had in my head of being a photographer become a reality.  Which, is huge! It’s a different experience.  Sometimes it’s really hard, and sometimes it’s really easy.  But without her, it probably would just be another idea sitting in my head.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody.

Take a moment and be thankful for all the people that surround you that you love and are there for you. But also, don’t forget to be thankful for whatever strength and love you have inside of you to provide those you love the most the support and love that they need when they most need it.