YEAR FOUR
House
Account: $479.82
Mortgage:
$603.00 - $569.10
Wim had been finishing up a few odds and ends at 51 Manson Street and came home a couple days later to report that my new #tenant, Diane, had yet to move in.
"Probably still packing," I suggested dismissively, secure in the knowledge that Diane had notified her landlord she was moving out. "Giselle, herself, told me they went down to Social
Services first thing Monday morning to hand in the #landlord
statement."
*
* * * * * * *
My family's happiness about my sister's progress had lasted barely more than a week when we received the horrible news that she'd taken a sudden turn for the worst and was going into a steady decline. This time, the doctors said there was no hope for recovery. All
they could do was give her morphine to ease her suffering as her organs shut down one by one. For three agonizing days and nights, six thousand miles apart, we waited for Frederica to die, hoping against hope that she would amaze everyone
and pull through yet again. She'd done it before.
On the third night, I went to bed at around midnight, awash with despair. It was horrible to feel so helpless. Frederica was dying halfway around the world, and there was not a damned thing I could do about it.
Or
was there?
Mummy
and I used to experience bouts of extra-sensory perception when living
two continents apart from each other.
Maybe I could do the same with my sister. I lay down in bed, closed my eyes, and conjured up an image of her. I pictured her slim, tanned fingers with their multitude of rings, resting on a starched white hospital
sheet. I visualized myself holding her
hands and sending my strength flowing into her.
Wrinkling my brow in intense concentration, I willed all I had into
the tenuous contact I felt we shared at that moment, whispering telepathically to her, urging her to take all of my
strength because I had lots to spare.
I
must have fallen into a deep sleep after that because I never heard the phone
ring.
A few hours later, Mummy came into my darkened room, sat down heavily on the edge of my bed, and
told me our long wait was finally over. At first, I was angry. My lonely, last ditch effort to help my sister had
failed.
But had it?
Mummy went on to tell me that a few minutes before she died, Frederica had suddenly woken up from her morphined, near-death
state and spoken to Janie, who was keeping watch by her
bedside. Looking amazingly happy and healthy, she imparted a list of instructions on how to care for her son Shane, whom he later adopted him as
his own. He was to take
Shane to the beach on his upcoming birthday, because the little boy had never
seen the sea, and she would be with them there in spirit. She also told Janie that he should join the South African Navy in Cape Town as they had planned. And so she she continued to list her wishes, appearing so like her normal old
self that Janie could scarce believe she was still mortally ill.
After giving her husband his final instruction, Frederica lay back down and quietly died. It was April 7th, a month after her 28th birthday.
Mummy
and I couldn’t afford to return to South Africa for the funeral, so my
aunt and uncle flew over from England in our stead.
Frederica was cremated in Cape Town, and Janie brought her ashes back to
Johannesburg. One of Frederica’s wishes was to remain always near St. Teresa's, the much beloved convent school she'd attended for twelve years. Her ashes were duly placed in a newly-erected
memorial wall next to the church adjacent to our old school, and a yellow rosebush
was planted in her memory. Yellow was
one of her favorite colors. The wording my parents chose for her plaque pretty much summed up the essence of Frederica: “A life filled with love, laughter, and
music.”
In the days and weeks following Frederica’s death, Mummy steadfastly maintained her British
stiff upper lip, at least in public. As for me, who usually cries at the drop of a hat, I found myself unable to shed a tear, except for the odd moment in the shower or when driving along a
particular stretch of highway next to the river. On Frederica's last visit to the States, we'd driven that road many times, each time hoping to come across a skunk because Frederica had never smelled one before.
