Just one year ago today, my brother Mike and I were in the car heading west. We planned a surprise visit to our oldest sister, Carole, on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. Little did we know then that would be the last weekend we would see our sister alive.
On the Saturday, her son Matt drove us to a party at a friend’s home out in the country. They were having a fundraising party to raise money to train and place service dogs for veterans with post traumatic stress disorder. As far as Carole was concerned, the party was just for her.
But there was a problem. On the way there, her nose began to bleed. The bleeding continued throughout the afternoon and into the evening. Concerned, I called her daughter, Irene, and was told to take Carole to the emergency room at St. John’s Hospital. We spent several hours there and Carole was sent home with her nose packed and strict instructions not to touch or remove the packing until she could see her regular physician on Monday.
Sunday afternoon, Mike and I visited a friend, Joseph Cortemanche and his wife Kip. The visit had been planned well before our trip to the Cities. But I should have known better than to leave Carole alone. When we returned from our visit, she had removed the nasal packing. She claimed, “it just fell out.” Then we had a wrangle over her medication. She was to take it twice a day, roughly twelve hours apart. She had taken her morning dose, and while we were gone, had also taken her evening dose, and as the day waned, was attempting to take a third dose. It was glaringly obvious that her dementia had progressed to the point she could no longer properly manage her medications.
Monday, Mike and I were due to leave. I made certain she had an appointment scheduled later that day with her primary doctor and that my niece would take her. Then it was time to go. And I will never forget my final words to my sister. “I love you, but you are your own worst enemy.”
Although I did not make another trip to St. Paul, I spoke to Carole on the phone every other week. If I called her in the morning, she seemed, well, if not totally with it, at least okay. In the evenings, she was quite befuddled. In December, I called to check whether the Christmas box I had sent to her house had arrived. When she answered the phone, she cried, quite literally cried, for help. She told me she was being held captive in a stranger’s house and was being forced to do all the housework. Very much alarmed, I told Carole that I had called her and that she was safe in her own home. It took a half dozen iterations before she finally believed me and found herself. Yes, she had received the Christmas box. Why, she wanted to know, had I sent her so many copies of the same book? I told her that the books were for her kids, my niece and nephews. Despite the labels on the packages, she had opened everything. After I hung up, I immediately contacted my nephew Matt to inform him of Carole’s mental state. He was aware. In fact, he and Irene had plans to admit Carole to a memory care facility the next week.
But that didn’t happen. Forty-eight hours later, Carole was dead.
Tempus fugit. Time flies.
Tomorrow will be my sister’s eighty-first birthday. She is celebrating it in heaven this year and for eternity to come. Carole was one of those people who seemed indestructible. Of course, she was going to live to at least match our mother’s age of 91, and probably even 100 it seemed. But it was not to be.
August 1, 1940. The world was at war, although the United States of America was not yet involved. Carole was the second child of our parents. She was born almost exactly one year after our eldest brother, Carl, who did not survive the birthing process. Carole grew to be the epitome of a first born child – bossy, stubborn, nurturing. If she had been born today, she would likely have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Despite that, Carole did well in school and quickly became a favorite of all her teachers. Upon graduation from high school, she received a full scholarship to St. Francis School or Nursing (now part of Viterbo University) in La Crosse. While a student, a cousin introduced her to a former shipmate, who was the man she would marry, DuWayne Pfaff.
They embarked on a three-year engagement and were wed on May 11, 1963. Nine months later, they welcomed their first born, Mark. Two years after that, Matt came along and just fifteen months later, John. Irene completed the family in 1969. There were many challenges along the way. Mark was born with Fragile X Syndrome, like his Uncle Mike and great-uncles Phillip, Theodore, Pat, and Robert, and more than a half-dozen cousins A traumatic car accident nearly cost her daughter Irene’s life, and because of the need to provide transport to therapy, Carole learned to drive at age 40. If you ever had the opportunity to be Carole’s passenger in a car, you quickly became a believer in the presence of guardian angels.
After Wayne’s death, Carole became a world traveler. She and Wayne had made trips to Florida and Hawaii, but now she was off to see the world. Australia, Germany, Austria, Ireland, England, Canada, Greece, plus bus trips all across the Midwest, her suitcase was always packed and ready to go. The only place she wanted to visit but did not was Israel because her children were fearful for her safety. Of course, on all her trips, she embarked on guided tours because Carole had the ability to get lost anywhere more than a few blocks away from her familiar neighborhood.
Bossy, stubborn, nurturing. That was my sister. The last decade of her life, even though dementia was chipping away at her mind, nothing could change that. All that to say, on this day before your eighty-first birthday, big sister, I miss you.
Kathy Kexel 