about a year ago it became very hard for me to continue posting to DDD. A lot of memories of my childhood are very painful and when you start writing about the good times it's apparent to me that these wonderful memories are what shield us from the tragic. I couldn't stop tho because a fragment of the story kept begging to be told, however I couldn't remember it because DumbDumbDaddyo asked me to stop telling it. Now I wish maybe I hadn't remembered as an avalanche of unwanted memories have opened to me. The fragment is from the day before my sister died. We're in the family room watching Flipper and the phone rings. That shrill shrill ringing of a 1970s telephone. It startles my sister terribly. I answer the phone and can hear an enormous room. I say hello and only hear what sounds like a really big wedding reception or the murmurs of a giant cocktail party. My parents went to a lot of those so I waited listening thinking my father was calling so I say is that you dad and the noise slowly fades. I get no response and hang up. My sixteen year old big sister who has been battling leukemia for eight of them, I am nine, gets very upset and insists the call was for her and how could I possibly have hung up on him. I explain no one was there and try to get back to watching Flipper. The phone rings again and again and again then Flipper and the boy stop what they are doing and look right at me. I get up answer the phone and hear a vast quiet space. More than silence I heard nothing. I said hello and the receiver swallowed my words. I looked at my sister, there are tears in her eyes and I I must tell her again there is no one there. She said because he is calling me and you won't bring me the phone so I stretch the curly receiver cord and took her the dead sounding phone. I watched her have her first lucid conversation in a long time with someone who wasn't even there. She became very relaxed and laid back on the sofa chatting away like any other sixteen year old would talking with her best friend. She appears so normal I try to go back to watching Flipper again but the TV is off. As she is listening she looks at me and smiles. She is so beautiful with her really long really straight jet black hair that has so miraculously grown back (back then they weren't sure it would) and her flawless complection. Karen sits up and asks me to hang up the phone. As I'm putting the receiver back in the cradle I pick up again and hear more than nothing. Karen is happy but becomes very tired and the color leaves her face and as she is fading back into sleep she says, "He loves you, says you're gonna live a wonderful life." She died the next day before I got home from school.
The few times I did tell that story it didn't go well, the last time I told that story I was tagged "emotionally challanged" . My Dad said that he believed me and why wouldn't He call first before coming to pick you up. Maybe you should keep this between you and me BiddyBuddy most people think your sister was delusional. I didn't know what that meant but it sounded pretty bad. She had been through so much already and I didn't want to make it any worse. DDD always had a way of making things seem ok even when they weren't.
