Having a sister is like having a best friend you can’t get rid of. You know whatever you do they’ll still be there. -Amy Li
I started writing this in October, but for some reason, I couldn’t finish it. My sister went home to Jesus on December 13, leaving a gaping hole in my heart. For 74 years I was never without her being only a phone call away. Sometimes during my college years that phone call would be after a night of insomnia at five o’clock in the morning, because I knew she’d be awake. Her wise counsel guided me through my thorny path to adulthood and I was steadfast through her final illnesses—COPD, congestive heart failure, bouts of pneumonia. Never a week went by without visiting Judy, especially during Covid and after. If we traveled, I always called her to let her know we arrived safely. Now, dear sister, I’m going to finish this tribute. I hope you can read it in heaven.
My earliest memory of my sister is of us wandering in the woods together, looking for wild strawberries before the birds or the cows ate them. She packed us a picnic lunch. In the middle of our woods was a huge rock, too big for my dad to remove, so he couldn’t convert this area to crop land. I liked to climb on the rock and pretend it was a pirate ship, like in Peter Pan. We ate our picnic food in the shadow of the rock. She told me stories about fairies that were hiding in the trees watching us. I totally believed her. I could almost see them, swinging about on the fluttering leaves. When I went to school and told the other kids in our one room country school that we had fairies in our woods, the little kids in my grade believed me until older boys laughed and made fun of me. I tried to defend my sister’s story until my brother took me aside and whispered it was make-believe.
Judy told me lots of stories over the years. Family stories. A bag of fabric scraps became a whole series of stories about the adventures a little girl had when she wore that dress. Where she got the bag of fabric I’ll never know because Mom couldn’t sew. But her imagination sparked mine. Now I write my own stories, thanks to Judy’s inspiration.
I’m the baby of my family. My brother was six when I was born and my sister nine. We lived on a small family farm about 50 miles north of Madison, Wisconsin. My mom was 43 and my dad fifty. She thought she was going through “the change” until I started kicking and she went to Doc. Meyers to confirm she was pregnant. My sister was delighted, to have another girl in the family, my brother, not so much. She told the story of the two of them watching me sleeping in the baby buggy while Mom helped Dad with chores. They tied a rope to the handle of the rickety buggy and sat down. When I woke up and started to cry, they pushed the buggy forward from their spot on the couch and pulled it back. However their plan was flawed. The buggy was top heavy and I got dumped out of it, which only made me cry harder. At least it got them out of babysitting!
When Judy learned to drive, she took me places. I know she took me along just so my mom and dad would let her have the car, but I didn’t mind being the tag-along. We went to Elvis’s movies, staring with Love me Tender. We watched his debut together on Ed Sullivan. We both screamed when he flicked the hair out of his eyes and gave the camera a smoldering look. I went from watching for fairies to cutting pictures of Elvis out of a magazine. I was seven going on seventeen, But then. my sister went away to college and I went back to a boring nine-year-old life. Although her stint at college only lasted one year, my sister never really came back to the farm and her relationship changed from companion to guardian angel.
Even though she no longer lived with us, Judy still took care of me, her baby sister. When I needed new clothes for school, and she was working full time, she would buy me outfits, like my favorite pink jumper and matching checked shirt or my one and only prom dress. Once my sister took me on a bus to Milwaukee to shop at Gimbels. She helped me pick out an ivory belted cardigan, plaid pants with a matching jacket, and a turtleneck to go under it all. I almost knocked myself out walking face first into the wall to ceiling mirror. She made sure I didn’t give myself a concussion before she laughed.
When I was in college and she was raising her family of four, somehow, she managed to save me leftovers from the casseroles she made. With four growing kids, I don’t know how she squirreled away leftovers in cottage cheese containers, but she did. When I heated up those ready to eat meals on a busy day, I felt her love all around me.
Even as adults, I could tell Judy anything and everything and she would understand. When I moved from Stevens Point to Beaver Dam, we became besties. We had many long lunches at Walkers, always ordering the chicken dumpling soup. We’d talk and talk.
We went to rummage sales—Stoughton was our favorite usually with my niece, Michelle, as co-pilot. One year we even took my grandson, Matthew, on the hunt for good stuff. He was about 7. Not too interested in vintage glassware. but he did find a cheese head and an egg beater, which made him happy watching the gears turn on the car ride home. Judy always laughed at him and his egg beater and commented what a good kid he was, especially to his little sister Aubrey.
Judy loved kids, so when Megan had Leona, now almost 18 months, she was so excited. I visited every Friday at her assisted living home. We’d start out by looking at Leona pictures from her day care. It was almost like being in Brooklyn with her. Then we’d watch the Price is Right and end our fun filled morning with Paternity Court. She wouldn’t go to lunch until the judge opened the envelope with the DNA results.
My sister also loved Christmas. Sometimes she put up two trees, her extensive Christmas village with help from her daughters, Gina and Michelle, and her collection of ugly Santa’s. She loved her gaudy Christmas sweaters, the more sequins and doodads the better. You couldn’t help but get in the joy of the season when you entered her place.
One Christmas when the milk checks barely covered expenses, Mom couldn’t afford to get me a new dress for the Christmas program. All the girls at school described their new outfits, but I had nothing to describe. I cried bitter tears the night of the program, when I had to wear my ugly short sleeved sailor dress. Boring navy blue and not even warm. My sister had a white bolero with gold threads woven through it, only worn for special occasions like a school dance. She brought it to where I was sobbing and said, “You can wear this. It’ll look special on you.” I glittered just like the Christmas angel in the program. Thanks to Judy.
No Christmas dinner was complete without her telling the Christmas story of Mom, my brother, Jerry and the Fuller Brush man. Mom was a sucker for the Fuller Brush Man. He walked with a limp and Mom felt sorry for him. We had scrub brushes, a toilet brush (even though we had an outhouse), and brushes to clean bottles. She didn’t want to hear another sales pitch, so she told my brother, then around six years old, to tell the salesman she wasn’t home. Then Mom hid behind the Christmas tree. My brother followed her instructions, and the FB man turned to leave. Suddenly the Christmas spirit entered my brother. He blurted out, “Do you want to see our Christmas tree?” He took the man into the living room and there was poor Mom peeking out from the branches. Christmas dinner wasn’t complete without Judy’s scalloped corn casserole and this story.
Jesus said, my father’s house has many rooms. So Judy’s there now, in one of those rooms, maybe wearing her gaudy Christmas sweater, drinking her can of Diet Pepsi to wash down her favorite Dove chocolate mints. Mom, Dad and Jerry are all laughing at the Fuller Brush man story with her on Christmas Day.
My head tells me she’s in a better place, but my heart is slow to listen.
For there is no friend like a sister in calm or stormy waters. To cheer one on the tedious way. To fetch one if one goes astray. To lift if one totters down. To strengthen whilst one stands. -Christina Rosetti
Janice Detrie 