My Sister Sue

In the earliest hour of the morning, January 30, 2008, my sister Sue passed away after a six-year battle with breast cancer.

Sue’s diagnosis was made just a short time after she’d been told everything was fine. Fibrocystic breast tissue had always made breast exams and studies a diagnostic challenge but she had been vigilant in seeking regular care. If anyone did her homework it was Sue, a career woman who had the smarts to do anything she set her mind to. She was as compassionate as she was capable, with a loving and independent spirit.

A professional with the Social Security Administration, working and living in Virginia, she did not want her family’s lives back in Michigan to be disrupted by her medical situation. She dealt with the unpleasantness of treatment with the help of friends and during her good times, she traveled abroad and returned to Michigan to visit. Every Sunday, she faithfully called each of us for a long chat, inquiring about our lives while downplaying the seriousness of her own.

The last time I spoke with Sue on a Sunday afternoon, 10 days before her death, I asked if she’d learned anything more about the cause of the terrible headaches she’d begun to suffer. “Oh,” she said, fatigue belying an attempt at sounding casual, “you remember how Dad got such bad headaches? I guess I am like Dad. I take some medication and try to sleep. Don’t worry.” We talked only a bit longer, not one of our usual hour or two-hour long conversations. Her last words to me were “Love you sister.”

We were all worried about the headaches. Sue’s friend Frank, a retired physician, called a day later and told our sister June, who was Sue’s executor, that she should come. What Sue had not told us was that she had already been told she had very little time left, two weeks at most. She didn’t want us to remember her as she was.

Sue lost her ability to communicate before June arrived in Virginia a day later. The kindness that Sue had so generously given others was there for her in equally generous measure as June and a circle of devoted friends set up round-the-clock care as the remaining few days ebbed away and with them, Sue’s life. Then, on January 30, when a friend arrived soon after 1 a.m. to administer pain medicine, he found that she was gone, her spirit freed from a body it longer needed.

My husband is not one to dream and rarely remembers his dreams if he does, but the night Sue died, he had a dream so vivid and real, it was two days before he was able to tell me and even then his voice broke with emotion. He said he had taken care of some work-related matters until midnight and had glanced at the clock around 1 a.m., before finally dozing off. In the dream, he was in our kitchen when the telephone rang. Sue’s voice greeted him. “Tell Jan that I love her,” she said. Then, she spoke the words again, her voice more faint and father away, “Tell Jan that I love her.”

There are things that cannot be proven but must be taken on faith. Belief that a better place and loved ones who have gone before await us, are among them. Signs whether in the form of a dream, a favorite song, a hint of a loved one’s cologne, or the sensation that they are near, must also be taken on faith.

Some will say that my husband’s dream was just a dream. Others will say it was a sign from Sue as she crossed over to a place where Dad and sister Lois, were at the front of a group that joyfully welcomed her arrival. I believe. Love you sister.

Jan Corey Arnett©2012

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