Stephanie was my younger sister. She would be four years younger than me. When she was in grade school she was diagnosed with arthritis. She took with ease. She took her medications and everything was fine. I noticed that when she got sick she stayed sick longer than everyone else I knew. Going into her senior year of high school she became very sick. The doctors were at a loss for an explanation for a couple of weeks. She spent some time in the hospital. It was very scary to me. I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t think I would be strong enough to deal with it. It turns out she was fine. She was diagnosed with Lupus. Lupus can be a scary disease, most autoimmune disorders are. She took having Lupus with ease also. Too much at ease, she ignored her doctor’s orders and got a tattoo, and was sick for weeks afterward. In her sophomore year of college at UW-Oshkosh, her friend suggested she meet his roommate. So she met Marty. Her and Marty hit it off. They dated for a year and became engaged in the spring of 1996. They planned on being married Fourth of July 1998. They talked about children even though with Stephanie’s lupus it would have been difficult.
Their plans were never completed. On the evening of December 31st, 1996, Marty had a New Year’s Eve party at his house in Oshkosh. The party ended early, everyone seemed very tired. With their guests gone, the two decided to head to bed. When a fire broke through the living room walls. One of Marty’s roommates came home to see the fire blazing in the living room. He ran upstairs and tried to wake them. The carbon monoxide overtook them. Marty and Stephanie were in a haze. They didn’t believe that there was a fire, but instead may have believed that their roommate was intoxicated. He wasn’t intoxicated from alcohol but he was from the carbon monoxide. He found his way out, by jumping out the window. He was not able to get back into the house.
My sister and her fiancé died that night. Their lives ended, but I learned an important lesson. Life is too short, spend time with the people you love, don’t be scared to make big plans and live each day like it could be your last. Do I always follow these lessons? No, it is hard; it is almost against human nature. No one ever believes that someday the people we love are going to go away, no one ever believes that we are going away. They do. We do.
I have never written about Stephanie. I started writing about her over the last couple of months. I was forced to dig deep and write about things that mattered to me. I was forced to write about things I knew. I know that life goes on. I know that things happen that are not planned. I know that we cannot control events in our life. I know that I can control how I react to the events in my life.
Their plans were never completed. On the evening of December 31st, 1996, Marty had a New Year’s Eve party at his house in Oshkosh. The party ended early, everyone seemed very tired. With their guests gone, the two decided to head to bed. When a fire broke through the living room walls. One of Marty’s roommates came home to see the fire blazing in the living room. He ran upstairs and tried to wake them. The carbon monoxide overtook them. Marty and Stephanie were in a haze. They didn’t believe that there was a fire, but instead may have believed that their roommate was intoxicated. He wasn’t intoxicated from alcohol but he was from the carbon monoxide. He found his way out, by jumping out the window. He was not able to get back into the house.
My sister and her fiancé died that night. Their lives ended, but I learned an important lesson. Life is too short, spend time with the people you love, don’t be scared to make big plans and live each day like it could be your last. Do I always follow these lessons? No, it is hard; it is almost against human nature. No one ever believes that someday the people we love are going to go away, no one ever believes that we are going away. They do. We do.
I have never written about Stephanie. I started writing about her over the last couple of months. I was forced to dig deep and write about things that mattered to me. I was forced to write about things I knew. I know that life goes on. I know that things happen that are not planned. I know that we cannot control events in our life. I know that I can control how I react to the events in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment