In honour of the passing of my sister 50 years ago today.



SISTER ANGEL
by
Julie Donner Andersen

I never knew my sister. But her legacy lives on in my heart.




There was a carefully knitted yellow baby bootie tucked gently away in my mother’s sewing basket. It has always been there since I can remember. Whenever I needed a button to make an eye for a sock puppet, the bootie was the first thing I encountered when I opened Mom’s magical basket. I never failed to pick it up and stroke its soft yarn, sometimes re-tying the delicate yellow ribbon laced through the ankle of the bootie. I never saw my mother knit, but wondered with childlike curiosity where it came from or who its previous owner could have been. But my attention would get drawn elsewhere, and I would carefully place the bootie back in the basket and attend to whatever childhood priority, forgetting about the bootie until the next time I needed a puppet’s eye or when another baby’s bootie sighting would bring the memory back to mind.

I recall asking my mother from time to time about the soft baby sock that inhabited her sewing basket, but was always answered with a simple, “It’s very special to me, dear. Please do be careful with it and don’t lose it. Some day, I will tell you the whole story”. And with that, Mom would wipe a single tear from her cheek, pat my head with a smile, and continue her housewifery a bit more melancholy than before.

When she felt I was old enough to understand, my mother told me about my sister. She was my parents’ firstborn child. Laura, as Mom described, was “one of God’s special angels”. She had Down’s Syndrome. Auburn haired and frail as a baby bird, Laura came into the world a few years before me and departed before I ever got the chance to know her. She lived just beyond her first birthday, and was buried with not only a beautiful white satin christening gown, but also with one single yellow baby bootie.

My parents had two more children after Laura died – my brother and myself. And although I’m sure we brought much joy to my mother’s life and continue to give her all the love we can in all of our 40-plus years, no one has had more of an impact on my mother’s heart than my “sister angel”, Laura. Mom devoted much of the rest of her life to volunteering with Special Olympics, entertaining throngs of miniature viewers with her children’s television show, and teaching my brother and myself about the value and love of Down’s children. In doing so, Mom has ensured that Laura’s legacy of life lives on. She also gave me the yellow baby bootie on the day my first child was born.

Having been blessed as a parent myself three times, I now fully understand how the miracle of a person’s life – no matter how brief – can change your life and your heart forever. I have acquired more sympathy for the now elderly woman who silently grieves on each anniversary of her child’s death, not only because I am a mother myself, but also because I am a sister. I grieve, too. I miss the person who never got a chance to be a part of my childhood. I fantasize about the late night bedroom chats, borrowed clothes, and silly inside jokes we could have shared. I wonder about the fragile soul who would have grown up special not only because of Down’s syndrome but also because she would have been my sister.

But even though we never met, Laura taught me about sisterhood. Her absence left an empty spot in my heart that I spent a lifetime determined to fill. Therefore, I have made pseudo siblings out of each of my close female friends. Although not sisters by birth, we are sisters of the heart. The love that bonds Laura and I goes deeper and farther than these friendships, but this unique love has always served as a catalyst to happiness in friendships for me, and I am grateful to her for this blessing.

Laura also taught me about empathy. When I met my husband, he had buried his first wife only three years prior. Having realized long ago how loving Laura had altered my mother’s heart, I came to understand how my husband’s first wife must have impacted his own, making him the beautiful person with whom I fell in love. I honor his late wife’s contribution to his life by inviting her into the circle of love she began when she first loved my husband many years ago, and I am grateful to her for her legacy.

Laura’s tiny life was but a ripple in the ocean of time, but the love she brought to our family was bigger than all the seas combined. Her existence changed our hearts and our lives, motivating us to keep her light shining by sharing her love with our fellow human beings. Had she never been born, we who now grieve her loss might have been much different - perhaps more self-involved and less understanding about matters of the heart. Perhaps my family would have turned out to be people who passed by a Down’s child without a second thought instead of becoming the loving people we are who embrace these special children every chance we get.

I know sisters are special. Growing up without Laura, I often found myself envying those unique sibling relationships, wishing I, too, could have had a wonderful forever friend as they had. But I know, in my heart of hearts, that a sister angel waits for me when it’s my turn to go, and I rejoice in knowing that we will have all of eternity to bond in a way that perhaps we never could as mere mortals here on earth.

If the definition of a sister is “someone whose life impacts your own and who remains a part of your heart for all eternity”, then I have missed nothing. Laura is and will forever be the soul mate I never knew, but who resides in my heart until we meet – for the first and last time - in Heaven, surrounded by all the other “brothers” and “sisters” that Laura’s legacy has inspired.


~Julie Donner Andersen is the author of “PAST: Perfect! PRESENT: Tense! Insights From One Woman’s Journey As The Wife Of A Widower” (iUniverse, Inc.) and the soon-to-be-released illustrated humor book, “Parentally Insane: Insights From The Edge of Midlife”.