The Invisible Sister

Eleven years ago today I lost my oldest brother. Rich was only 55 years old, retired for barely a year from his career as a Denver police officer. Diagnosed with cancer in January, he endured a difficult surgery and grueling treatments. But it was too late. In June the doctors told him he had about two months to live.

Rich was 14 years older than me, the only child of my father’s first marriage. Unusual for the 1940s, dad was awarded custody. Later dad met mom and they created our little family.

The age difference between Rich and me made our relationship challenging. By the time I was eight, he had graduated high school, joined the military, served in Japan and Hawaii, returned home, and was married with a child on the way. It was more than our age difference, though. We were like oil and water. He was brash and abrasive, a teller of tall tales who craved the spotlight, loved to argue, and especially loved to win arguments. I was a quiet, shy, sensitive soul with no debating skills. My family was conservative; I was the peace loving flower child with liberal notions and a completely different way of looking at the world. This made me an easy target. Rich took delight in ridiculing my beliefs. As time passed I found it easier to simply withdraw from most conversations, keeping my ideals intact even as I grew weary of defending them. The fact that I never married or had children also set me apart. I was too different, too hard to understand. Eventually I became invisible.

Rich had another half-sister several years older than me. Patty and Rich shared the same mother, Ida. When Ida passed away, Rich took custody of his teenaged sister. Patty was a sweet, kind, pretty girl. Everyone loved her. In a few years’ time she finished school, married, and moved to Las Vegas to start her own family. Rich visited her frequently and she returned to Colorado on a regular basis.

My brother lived a full, active life. He was adventurous, always into something, and had friends galore. A whirlwind of people constantly surrounded him at his many parties at home, at his cabin on Johnson Lake in Nebraska, or at his trailer near Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico. I learned this from the tales my family told me, since they usually attended. Once I was asked why I was never at Rich’s parties, never had joined them on road trips to the cabin or the trailer. That was easy to answer. I was never invited.

Naturally, a grand party was planned at Rich’s house following his memorial service. So many people were there, yet I only knew a tiny fraction of them. As the evening wore on, I staked out a quiet location in the living room where I took solace in the company of my brother’s dogs. A line had formed to the bathroom, and one fellow standing in that line asked who I was, how did I know Rich? I answered that I was his sister, Debbie. He looked puzzled. Then he said to me, well, everyone knows Patty, but he never heard that Rich had another sister. Was I from somewhere else? I was devastated.

After that conversation, I went to the dining room where a collage of photos had been assembled on a giant bulletin board to memorialize Rich’s life. As I pored through the photos, I saw the faces of people living and dead, every conceivable connection you could imagine: grandparents, parents, children, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, cars, dogs, boats. I searched but could not find my face anywhere. Finally I realized only three key people were missing from the collection: Rich’s two former wives, and me.

That last summer of his life I visited Rich every weekend, and cared for his dogs while his wife took him to see the ocean one last time. Every time I left his side, I reached out to hug and kiss my brother and always said “I love you.” Each time he turned his face away from my kiss; not once did he respond to my declaration.

The day before he died I spent the afternoon with Rich, giving his wife a break. I joined him on the bed and we watched TV, a documentary about the sinking of the Lusitania. He commented during a commercial for paper shredders, saying he really needed to get one of those. And he told me he kept seeing lights, did I see them too? I shook my head, no. When I left, I leaned over to hug and kiss him. This time he didn’t turn away. When I said, “I love you,” he answered, “I love you too.” For the first time, and the last.

So in the end, what did it matter that a complete stranger didn’t know that Rich had two sisters? Neither did it matter that my photo was not displayed on the memorabilia board. Because at long last, I finally had the answer to something I never dared believe was possible. My brother did love me after all.