Forces of Nature

J. and me, c. 1972

In the waning hours of a recent Saturday, my husband and I occupied ourselves with some final preparations for Sunday brunch.  Something distant but stentorian caught our attention.  It sounded like the rumble of giants hurdling mountains and valleys.  A short time later, we saw the black sky pulse with far-away jags of light.  The forecast storm would arrive much earlier than expected.

Since the sky was still starry and cloudless, I predicted that we would be fast asleep when the rain finally came…just one more thing to do before sweet, sweet sleep.  Alone in the kitchen, I was surprised by abrupt, spattering downpour and looked up at the clock.  Midnight.  It was my sister’s birthday.   J. would have been 50.  It seemed appropriate, even predictable, that this thundering storm heralded the birthday jubilee for the force of nature that was my sister.

Not long ago a friend asked, “What was your sister like?”   I never had the chance to respond – we got distracted like girlfriends often do – but I was sort of relieved.  How does one make specialness understandable?  It would be like trying to convey the hilarity of an inside joke or the wonderment of seeing the ocean for the first time.  My sister truly was special, in a you-had-to-be-there kind of way.

In a nutshell, J. made an impact.  Her beauty was preternatural, inspiring many a man’s blissful ardor and eventual perdition.  Pity the starry-eyed who underestimated J.’s shrewdness and sometimes rapacious disposition.  Then again, my sister could be the most generous, thoughtful, loving person in the world.  Her wit was often uproarious and occasionally viperous.  She could end wars.  Or start them.  Gad, could she be an exasperating tangle of dichotomies.  This mattered little in the long run, though.  When a person possesses that rare something (think Brando or Liz), others are willing to withstand the torrents of soul-sucking egomania because the in-between times are just so good.

J.’s impact wasn't always favorable, mind you.  Many rightfully considered her a serious pain in the ass.  For better or for worse, everyone had very strong points of view about my sister and those opinions tend to endure, unmoderated by hindsight.  All that J. was - beautiful, impulsive, playful, carnal - seems eternal, too.  A young person dying suspends time in this way.  Indeed, it is almost impossible to imagine my untamed sister as a middle-aged woman.  But, if I close my eyes and let go of the last known reality, I can visualize a grounded 50-year-old:  replacing her once perfect visage is a face that maps the journeys of a life lived fully; her deportment is still confident, but with a mellowness born of maturity; she is, at last, content.

As I listened to the surging thunderstorm in the earliest moments of J.’s birthday this year, I imagined the rain chanting a message:  Remember me.  Celebrate me.  

I do.  And I am.   Happy Half-Century, J.