Since I was born, I had been know as Cheri. Heidi's sister. Heidi would take me with her everywhere she went and people would ask, "Who is that?" and someone would always answer, "That's Cheri. Heidi's sister." And then I would be cooed at and tickled.
If I weren't in tow, Heidi would talk about me to her friends. She was my only sibling, and I was hers. Heidi was 14 years older than me. She was the one that looked out for me. And always tried to make my life easier than hers.
When I was older, she would take me to her friends' parties. I could hear the whispering again. "Who is that?", "Why, that's Cheri! Heidi's sister." I was accepted into their social realm.
When I was desperate to make big changes in my life I applied for a job where Heidi worked. People looked at my resume and saw my last name. I heard them huddled together again, waving the pages of my employment history, and hearing those familiar words, again in secret whispers, "That's Cheri. Heidi's sister." I got the job!
Years later, I wasn't hearing those words as often. Life took us both into different directions. I became a single mom. She became married, once again. Life became busy and difficult. I had always heard those words somewhere in the background of my life. It had become part of my identity. By not hearing them, somehow caused me to loose who I was and my connection to the world.
Time went on again. And slowly I no longer needed to hear those words to know who I was. I am Cheri. Heidi had named me.
I became independant as Cheri. I had metamorphasized into a stronger being. I had found power within myself to take on the world and laugh.
Then it all crumbled once again.
The nurses all whispered behind their desk and their mountains of patient files. Just beyond the beeps and rushing of air through the myriad of tubes, I left her room and I heard them say, "That's Cheri. Heidi's sister". I entered a foreign world.
I gingerly stood up from my seat, took a deep breath, wiped away the tears streaking down my cheeks, touched the smooth glazed oak of the coffin as I walked past it, and then exhaled. I heard whispers again, as I stepped up to the sanctuary, "Who's that?" Her friends were asking in solemn tones through their tears. "That's Cheri.... Heidi's sister." It was the last time I was to ever hear those words. They were to be buried with my sister in her still unmarked grave.
I stood there before her friends and our family. The hundreds of the thousands of lives and hearts Heidi had touched. I spoke the words that Heidi lived by. "Let me be an instrument of Thy Peace..." The Prayer of Saint Francis. My final gift to her, my only testimony to her life that I could find the strength buried deep within my grief to speak. And then said good bye to my sister.
And from now on, again, I am Cheri. Apart of the world. Strong and powerfull, and living a life again filled with laughter.
