My Sister Carol
My greatest champion and
My detractor; both
My sister Carol was that rarest combination of highly intelligent, a critical thinker, hilarious, irreverent, ethical, honorable, occasionally capricious and entirely unfair, and frequently just plain goofy.
Growing up she was, hands down, one of my closest friends, even when we frequently disagreed, and occasionally drove one another nuts. And she was one hell of a lot of fun.
When I left California for Florida, and we were relegated initially to communicating via letters and phone calls, my phone bill skyrocketed, but every penny was worthwhile. And the arrival of email was a godsend for us both!
When push came to shove, and I wanted a second opinion on what was going on in my life, it was her opinion that I sought out first, because even when we disagreed, which wasn't infrequent, her insights nearly always led me to greater learning and insights of my own.
Like myself, my mom and my dad, Carol was an avowed lifelong learner, with a wide frame of reference and wide-ranging interests, and a wicked sense of humor that could be triggered by virtually anything.
And that is what I miss the most. As sisters, with similar senses of humor, we could nearly always make each other laugh, and Carol had a great laugh -- if she started laughing in a theatre, it wasn't long before nearly everyone else in the theatre was laughing too, because her laugh was simply infectious, in the best of ways.
I remember once when my then-husband, Michael, told me that I needed to call the phone company, because they had screwed up and showed that a call I made to California at 1:30 in the morning had lasted for four and a half hours.
And I said, yeah, that's about right, I called Carol and, as usual, we talked about anything and everything.
We only talked about once a month, on average, but when we did, we could easily talk for four hours, and frequently did. We bounced ideas off of one another, shared treasured music, books and films, talked about the mundane minutiae of our days, and always, we laughed. Long, loudly, and hard.
And while we had very similar views in many areas, we also had wide areas of disagreement, and that was where Carol shined, and was one of my greatest teachers; when I was at my most passionate, and stating my opinion with all of my heart and soul, she made me prove my point, and demonstrate that I had actually done my homework.
It was Carol, more than anyone, who made me a critical thinker, who made me question what we were hearing on the news or on the streets, who was the first to question herself, and if she received a non-answer from someone, she would not let it go until they had firmly stated an opinion, one way or the other.
Wishy-washy didn't cut it with her. At all.
In mid-2010 she and I talked about her health problems, but although I knew that she had been ailing for some time, I had no idea just how ill she truly was, because she did not want me to know.
And then, on September 12th, at shortly after midnight, California time, she was gone. Nine days before her birthday. And my world was forever altered.
I still find myself wanting to pick up the phone and get her take on something, to share a particularly gorgeous sunset, some hilarious tidbit that Marek has come up with, or simply to shoot the breeze.
But, as much as I'd love to talk with her again, I have nowhere to call.
Still, I talk to her all the time. And I've been telling her lately how much I still think about her, and how much I miss her, and our mom. She was one of a kind, and she had a lot to do with making me into the person I am today, for which I am very grateful.
Thank you, Carol. Thank you.
This post, and all those from now until the end of 2018, I am dedicating to the work of #tarc and #yah, aka @rhondak's nonprofit dog rescue and @sircork's charity @youarehope.
Half the liquid proceeds earned from my posts will be evenly split between the two organizations.
The photo of my sister Carol was taken by me at Sea World, San Diego, in the summer of 1975, using my Kodak Instamatic camera.
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