Waterfalls and Waysides – Entry 5 in the story of my sister and me

 The surprises in life make it interesting. Could you imagine being able to see the future? And knowing what was going to happen? You’d have no purpose for living. Ordinary, everyday happenings make life feel comfortable, but you live to be surprised. Never lose the capacity for being surprised. Never let life become ordinary. Learn to enjoy the littlest things. That’s why little kids and puppies are so neat. They think everything is new and exciting. 

Such enthusiasm. Pat Loehmer

1994 -When Autumn Turned into Fall

After her second surgery late in the summer of 1994, my sister Pat endured rounds of radiation, followed by rounds of chemotherapy. One October Saturday, she asked if I’d take her for a ride up north. Just a day trip, eight hours which are burned into my memory. Visions that haunt me still.

Pat had been the one who always had the long hair. Even when it hung just above her shoulders, it was longer than mine ever was. For one year in high school, Pat had it cut in some kind of style of the time, but it didn’t take long before her tresses ran down her back again, often in a single thick braid.

When she had started chemo, in an attempt to accept the reality that her hair would fall out, she had her long locks cut.

When I picked her up that Saturday morning, she wore a bandana. It had only been a couple days since I had seen her, but her skin had turned sallow and thin.

“Everything ok?” I asked.

“Yup.” Her jaw was set; the same stubbornness would get her through a lot in the coming years. “I’m not eating much, yucky stomach, but other than that, I’m ok.”

“All right.” I was skeptical. I didn’t ask if she was sure she was up to the ride.

We headed to Lake Superior. We saw some waterfalls, and we had some laughs. I took the usual ton of pictures (looking them up now, I must have taken a whole roll just that day, hard to fathom life before digital cameras).

At one point, we stood at a wayside on a hill overlooking the orange and red leafed trees, she asked, “Do you mind if I take off the bandana? My head itches.”

“Well, sure, why would I care?” It was only a head of hair, wasn’t it?

If I would’ve wanted to, I probably could have counted the golden hairs left on her scalp. As she ran her hand over her head, more precious strands came out, and she released them to the wind. I wanted to catch them and save them; maybe somehow we could figure out a way to attach them to her head again. She couldn’t just let them go.

But there they went, one foot-long strand after another, into the meadow, onto the dry stalks of straw that littered the field where we stood.

“You should see what the shower drain looks like in the morning.” She laughed and described the wad of hair she took out of the drain every day.  

Weeks later, having lost all of the hair on her head and her entire body, she found it hard to stay warm. Her eyes also dried out from the lack of eyelashes. She would jokingly say, who knew that we actually need our hair?

Things had definitely changed; we had changed. And nothing was ever going to be the same again.