For Angie

Last summer I visited Sapulpa, Oklahoma and walked the paths of childhood.

The house I once called home has been gone for many years.  But I walked to the block where I once played.  I stood upon a sidewalk that led nowhere.  The hot Oklahoma wind rippled my shirt across my sweaty back and the song of cicadas filled my ears.  I stood where my house once stood.  A greenish yellow lawn greeted me and our pecan tree yet remained. The pecan tree has reached such a majestic height in my many years of absence.

 


I walk through the yard that once was my own and gaze at the white house upon the hill.  This is the twin's house, the Berg house.  The two matching Pine Trees in the front yard now tower above me like the Pecan tree of my home.  I remember when these pines were small and four little girls played in this yard.
   
Should I knock at the door of the Berg house?  Should I tell the current owner of the summer days spent within?  No, I just close my eyes and the warm sun bathes my face as I walk back through the corridors of my mind.

 


I know this house. 

I know the cool blue gray paint of the front porch.  I know the side door opens to a dining room with vintage pocket doors.  I know that once a cat named Tiger lived here.  I know the way the light streams in through the living room sheers.  I know that the staircase is regal, but that did not stop us from riding mattresses down its bumpy length. 

I know my best friends once lived within this house.

I met the girl on the way home from school one day when I was only six years old.  She stood beneath a stop sign and smiled. She was one of two, but I did not know that then.  We talked shyly as strange children are want to do.  She said she lived in the big white house on the hill with her twin sister and the rest of her family.

That is how I met the twins. Angie and Katie Berg became fast friends with my sister Esther and I.  We lived only a block away from each other and spent many years walking to Washington Elementary School together. We were all in the same grade and they were as much a pair and my sister and I.

The twins lived a hard life.  They were the last children of a dying marriage.  They lived in the big house with five siblings and their mother.  We rarely saw their mother as she mostly stayed in her room.  She was stuck fast inside by grief of life lived not as intended.  We worried about the twins.  My sister Esther and I were poor, but there was always food in our fridge; not so Katie and Angie.  Many times I opened their fridge to find pickle juice, condiments and nothing else.  Or I would watch them live for days on only fried bologna.   My mother would press food into their hands every time she saw them, saying softly, “Those poor girls.”

Yet, even with all their struggles, the twins did well in school.  They played sports and had lots of friends.  They even had a paper route that occasionally Esther and I would help them with.  As the years past they grew stronger and their Mother grew less sad.  There was more food and we would dance and play.  Angie was so strong that by the end of elementary she could mow the sloped lawn of their yard.  She took great pride in keeping the house nice and was often working on it.   

Then in 6^th grade we drifted apart.  They had a party and invited all the popular kids, and did not invite us.  I asked Katie about it later as it hurt my feelings.  I was rather nerdy, chubby and looked the poor girl I was.  Katie told me it was not the kind of party I should go to, as I still played with dolls and things of childhood.  Angie and Katie both began to waitress at the best restaurant in town soon after.  With their meager earnings and their lovely home, it was enough to make the leap into the popular crowd.

Esther and I would watch the twins from afar.  We still see them and they were always nice, but we were no longer best friends.  Katie was a cheerleader and Angie was a homecoming queen.  I will never forget the day she was arrayed in all her finery.  I was on the debate team and the debate room is used as the green room for any high school stage event.  I vividly remember Angie curling her ringlets in my classroom.  I knew how soft her hair felt from braiding it many years before.  I walked up to her and touched it saying, “You look beautiful.”

And she smiled at me as she had always done and walked onstage into the light.

No, we were no longer close. The Twins no longer played with Esther and I. But when the abuse from our father became too bad during our junior year, we ran away from home and into the arms of our friends.  That night they welcomed us with open arms just as though we were little girls again.  It was with their phone we called the hotline number that led us out of a horrible home life.

Then we graduated from high school and flew away from each other.  Over the years I would hear things, good things and horrible things.  I would hear that Angie didn’t make it through WestPoint, and instead would go to OSU.  I would hear Katie was singing and was very good at it.  I would hear Angie got married, and had beautiful daughters.  I would hear that Katie was shot by a stalker and would never sing again.

Then a year ago I heard the whispers.  Angie might have cancer.  But they were only whispers, yet I knew cancer in my life and worried for Angie and her family.  Then a few months ago I started asking friends on Facebook if anyone could find Angie.  In March, Susan (Hartin) Ashbaugh contacted me with Katie’s number.  Then I was talking to Katie on the phone.  Angie was running out of time.  Could I visit?  I flew out a week later and into the arms of my friends.

If there is one thing that death has taught me it is, in the end, we become the children we always were. 

I stayed two days with Katie and Angie.  We went shopping and had ice-cream.  I met Angie’s three lovely daughters and I painted with them.  I met Katie’s beautiful daughter and I painted with her.

I learned that Angie had glioblastoma multiforme.  She found out the day before Easter 2011 after having a seizure.  She has had surgery, steroids and chemo, but it is growing inside her brain and she won’t be getting better.

When I saw Katie and Angie in March.  Angie could walk and talk, she could cook and hold her daughters.  She could kiss her husband.  She would forget things, but she did not seem too bothered by it and she would just smile.  She wears her hair short under a chemo cap, but it is still the lovely soft hair of our childhood.  I know, I touched it and said you look beautiful.

Now it is May, and Angie is in home hospice.  She can no longer talk, but she can still hear.  On Sunday, I called and Katie answered.  I wished Angie a Happy Mother’s Day. 

I like to think inside she smiled at me as she has always done.  And I know it will soon be time for her to walk onstage into the light.