Another sleepless night
.
Tossing and turning with muscle spasms and body aches. My Lyme disease had
flared up again. I’d been taking antibiotic cocktails twice a day for a year,
but the disease had gone undiagnosed for too many years before that. I’d become
a prisoner of my illness. I had to quit my job. I couldn’t get out much. My
husband was more of a caretaker than a companion. None of our children lived
near enough to visit very
often. What was the purpose of my life anymore? I
wondered. I couldn’t even get a decent night’s rest.
I got up and pulled on my robe. A computer waited
in a small room down the hall. It took me into other worlds, to help block out
the pain. I surfed the internet
and ended up in a chat room for women. But
it was empty. Just like my life.
Tears slid down my cheeks as I stared at
the blank screen. I typed a message. "I don’t know how to suffer with grace. I
don’t want to live any longer. God, if you are everywhere you will see this."
I buried my face in my hands. When I
looked up I saw that
the name Barbara was
on the screen. "I’m not God, but I want to talk to you," she wrote.
Barbara in Tennessee chatted with me in
California for an hour. We wound up exchanging
e-mail addresses. Finally I went back to bed and slept better than I had for a
long while. I knew I’d found a friend.
Barbara was my first thought when I awoke
the next morning. I turned on the computer and wrote to her. From then on it was
California to Tennessee and back again every day.
"Today was tough," Barbara wrote one
evening. She worked in social services, just like me before I was sidelined with
Lyme disease. She told me of a sad situation I’d seen many times on the job.
That wasn’t all we had in common. Barbara and I discovered we’d both been born
in Pennsylvania and had lived in many of the same places. She also had a grown
child she didn’t see often enough. Barbara and I could talk to each other about
anything.
"We’re like sisters who were separated at
birth," I told her more than once. We each had a telephone plan with a special
20-minute rate. We called once a month. One of us set a timer for 20 minutes,
then the other would call back so we could talk for another 20 minutes. Before
we hung up we always said, "I love you, Sis."
Barbara and I often laughed about how
strange it was for us to feel as close as we did considering we’d never met
face-to-face. We talked about getting together after I was fully recovered.
"Let’s move to a tropical island," Barbara said. "Or go on a cruise!" Our big
plans.
In 1998 a series of tornadoes tore through
Barbara’s area of Tennessee. Telephones and electricity were out. Every time the
phone rang I hoped to hear her voice. I constantly checked my e-mail. Hours
became days. Without my newfound friend and sister I started to crawl back into
that dark place inside myself. Keep
her safe, Lord, I prayed. And keep me safe too.
Then the phone call came: "Hi, it’s me,"
she shouted.
"Thank God. I can’t imagine not
having you in my life."
"I’ll always be in your life," Barbara
said. "We are sisters forever."
I saw Barbara through that disaster, and
she saw me through the forest fires that threatened my area in 2001. My Lyme
symptoms abated, and I felt better. We continued our daily e-mails and our
monthly phone calls. We exchanged gifts. Nothing arrived for my birthday
in 2003, but I knew Barbara was overworked that summer.
The day after my birthday she asked in her
e-mail how I liked the gift she sent. I hadn’t gotten it. "I’ll put out a tracer
at the post office tomorrow," she said. "On my way to the doctor."
She’d been having stomach problems. We
both thought it was the stress from long hours on her job. But Barbara’s doctor
admitted her to the hospital
to run some tests. I awaited the diagnosis.
"The news isn’t good, Sis," Barbara said
when she called. "I have pancreatic cancer. The doctors don’t know how long I
will last."
I dropped to my knees. "Please don’t die,"
I whispered.
"It’s okay. Remember, I’ll always be with
you. I love you, Sis."
Her words still hovered in the air when
she hung up. Her daughter called that night. Barbara had told her all about me.
Her mother had gone into a coma. Two days later Barbara died.
I didn’t think I had any tears left, but I
cried nonstop. I would miss her so much. Her monthly phone calls, her
daily e-mails, her constant friendship. And I never got the chance to see her or
hug her. Now all our big plans to meet were nothing but a pipe dream.
On the day of Barbara’s funeral the
doorbell rang. It was the mailman with her missing birthday gift, delivered
first to
a wrong address.
My hands shook as I opened the box.
Inside was a heart-shaped pin of small
rubies, with a note tucked underneath: "Bought this at a two-fer sale. One for
me, one for my sister."
I would wear mine every day.
I called her daughter to tell her I had gotten this gift
at last. She told me that Barbara made a special request to be buried wearing
her own heart-shaped pin. "So my sister can find me in heaven," she’d said. I
have no doubt of that. God helped us find each other here on earth. He knew the
perfect setting for our big plans to meet.
