Andrea Wilson Woods' Blog

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Every time I have turned on the TV this past week, there is another reminder about the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, as if our country could ever forget. I cannot believe that someone made the decision to release the full audio recordings between the military and air traffic controllers that day. What purpose does it serve? It reminds me of when I saw people jumping out of the Twin Towers in the documentary Giuliani’s 9/11. I knew it happened, but I didn’t need to see a close-up of the tragedy.

I wasn’t in New York when the attacks happened. I don’t have an amazing Manhattan 9/11 story. I was in Burbank, California, home-schooling my sister Adrienne for her sophomore year of high school. By September 11, Adrienne was enduring her fifth round of chemotherapy in an effort to fight Stage IV liver cancer. With tumors scattered throughout her lungs, she was unable to breathe deeply and tired easily. However, she wanted to return to school and her honors classes more than anything else so on the morning of September 11, she was working on World History.

***

While Adrienne works on her assignment, I turn on the television. I have this odd, yet sudden, desire to see the news, which I never watch because nothing good ever happens. I start switching channels until I realize the same thing is on every channel: the Twin Towers in New York City are on fire. I read the ticker at the bottom of the screen. Terrorist attacks? In America? Then suddenly the network shows a replay of what appears to be an earlier event. A plane collided into the South Tower causing a burst of flames to appear followed by an explosion. Oh no. The time listed on the frame is 9:02am—Eastern Standard Time—but it’s noon already in New York. This colossal event occurred three hours ago, and I knew nothing about it.

“Adrienne, you need to see this.”

“But Sissy, I have so much work to do.”

“Take a break. Now. Consider this a history lesson.”

Adrienne sighs as she gets up from the kitchen table. As soon as she turns around and sees the TV, she gasps, “What happened?”

“I don’t know kiddo. Let’s find out.”

We sit together and watch as the events of the morning replay themselves. We discover another plane hit the Pentagon although fewer casualties are expected there. A fourth plane—believed to be on its way to the White House—was diverted by the passengers who attacked the hijackers; the plane crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania. Adrienne recalls her friend Sharon is staying with her father in a town near Philadelphia, and she insists I try contacting Sharon to make sure she is okay. Her concern makes me think about people I know in Manhattan—one person in particular—and I wonder if he is alive.*

Just when we both think it cannot get much worse, the news replays the South Tower collapse. Adrienne and I watch with our mouths agape. “How could this happen, Sissy?” she asks.

I wonder if she remembers asking me that same question about the outcome of the O.J. Simpson trial, and I feel inadequate that six years later my answer is the same. “I don’t know.”

I use the attacks on America to begin a dialogue with her about Ancient Greece. I ask her what’s she has read so far and what she has learned. As I listen, Adrienne speaks in detail about democracy and how the Greeks influenced our government. Her eyes are alert and the more she talks the faster her speech gets—just like she used to be before the drugs slowed her down. She begins defending an individual’s right to freedom, and analyzes what the terrorists hoped to gain by attacking the United States. I finally have to stop our discussion because she has a lot of work to do. As I turn off the television, I make a mental note of all of the people I need to contact. Beyond saying a silent I’m so sorry to the victims and their families, I’m too busy fighting a war in my own home to comprehend what has happened.

***

I didn’t fully understand the impact of 9/11 until I saw the victims’ names unveiled at the Superbowl on February 3, 2002. By that time, Adrienne had been gone almost four months. In public, I lived in a frozen state of “being fine” because I didn’t know how else to be. At home, I often stayed on the couch for hours unable to move or I made lists of menial things to do so that I would remain busy, busy, busy. Too busy to think. Too busy to feel. However, seeing all names of the 9/11 victims on the TV screen forced me to feel. Silent tears slid down my face. The list seemed endless.

I don’t want to remember 9/11 because Adrienne died less than a month later. Commemorating the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks means I have lived ten years without her—a truth that I live every day, yet I find unacceptable.

I will never forget September 11, but please don’t ask me to remember.

AWW — XoXo

*Adrienne’s friend Sharon and my friend Will survived the 9/11 attacks.

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I come from a family of hoarders. We’re not as bad as the ones on the television show Hoarding: Buried Alive, but my mother’s side of the family tends to collect stuff. Lots of stuff. At one time, my mother owned enough wigs to open her own store, and she never passed up any chance to buy makeup. I wasn’t exactly my mother’s child. Instead of “girly” things, I collected shells, rocks, feathers, marbles, Lynda Carter pictures, miniature ceramic animals, and any item (e.g., shirt, pen, stationery) with a rainbow on it. Each collection had its own box, file, cabinet, or drawer. Although my mother protested that the ceramic miniatures were too expensive, she didn’t discourage my interests even when I needed another shoebox for my shells or I owned three rainbow shirts. As long as I kept my room neat (and I did), she was happy.

However, when my mother and I moved from Arkansas to Alabama, we took only what could fit in her silver Toyota Celica. Items had to meet two criteria: necessary for life and easy to shove into boxes. She sold her wigs; I threw or gave away my collections. Mother nixed the framed Degas print that she had bought me as a gift. In fact, I don’t remember taking any of the art in our house. She had this thing though about keeping my baby dresses; they were so important to her, which made no sense to me. However, I was allowed to bring all of my former dance costumes (the kind you wear one time) so I didn’t argue with her about how illogical it was to bring clothing that neither one of us could wear.

After five years of living in Alabama, I was ready to move across the country to attend college. It’s shocking how little time it takes to accumulate stuff. I repeated the same purging process because all of my crap could not fit into my Ford Escort. My criteria were simple: necessary and special. I sold all of the furniture in my bedroom including my television set. I opted to bring my stereo, my tapes, and my records. I brought few books as they took up too much space. Of course, I kept my clothes and jewelry. I took posters, letters, and mementos. Although I left several boxes with my mother including the one with my former dance costumes, I didn’t trust my pieces of nostalgia with her.

Fast forward seven years and I was a college graduate, a parent, and a person who had so much stuff that I needed a storage unit until I was able to move into a house in Burbank. In order to afford the increase in rent, I also needed a better job. Having made it past the phone interview for a possible teaching position, I was invited to attend a second group interview. The employer asked that I bring “one thing”—a material item—that best reflected my personality. I looked around. What’s my one thing? Then I remembered My Memory Box.

After a few minutes, I discovered my one thing: my first pair of ballet slippers. They are a size 10 (girls) and they are no bigger than my hands. The black leather ballet shoes have the crunchy texture of old age, and a prize of $4* is listed on the inside sole where I wrote my name in all caps—ANDREA WILSON—in red ink. I also wrote it in black ink in case someone was color-blind. Those ballet slippers, along with my first pair of pointe shoes, hang on my office wall as a reminder of my first love, my childhood dream, and my inner soul.

My sister Adrienne loved music the way I love dance. For her fifteenth birthday, she wanted a bass. In an email to a friend on February 10, 2001, she wrote, “I found the perfect Bass at Guitar Center. Fender Jazz, smaller space between frets and thinner neck, super light, $500. Great for my midget hands, aye?”

She begged my ex John aka “Johnny” Ceravolo to buy it for her. Every day, she nagged him though there was no need to do so. He had every intention of buying her the bass and teaching her to play it.

Upon receiving the bass for her birthday on April 8, Adrienne emailed the same friend, “I got the fucking Fender Jazz Bass. Woo-fucking-hoo!”

As promised, John taught Adrienne how to play the bass. She practiced religiously. When her fingers acquired blisters, she showed them off as if they were war wounds; “I’ve been working on my chords,” she would tell people smiling at the evidence of her hard work.

Less than six weeks later, Adrienne was diagnosed with cancer and in the hospital beginning treatment. John brought the bass to her room, but when visitors began playing it, Adrienne insisted that we take the bass home. “It’s my bass. I’ve hardly had a chance to play it. I don’t want other people touching it.”

When Adrienne died less than five months later, the bass remained in her room. When John and I ended our relationship two years after her death, the only thing he wanted that belonged to her was her bass. It made sense to me. They shared a love of music. He bought her the bass; he taught her to play it; he would now play it; and he would always keep it. I trusted him with Adrienne’s One Thing.

I found out last week that John no longer owns Adrienne’s bass. He allowed his son (who was like a younger brother to Adrienne for seven years) to use it, and he sold it without telling John. I almost fell to my knees when I heard the news. Even though he didn’t personally give Adrienne’s bass away, John is responsible for what happened to it. I trusted him with the one material possession that Adrienne cared about the most in this world. Her one thing. Music was so important to Adrienne that she stopped one of the chemo medications when it began to affect her hearing, claiming, “I would rather be dead than deaf.”

I cannot decide which is worse

• Adrienne’s bass is gone;
• John’s son sold it;
• John broke my trust; or
• I don’t even own a picture of Adrienne playing her bass.

I would trade my little, black ballet slippers for Adrienne’s Fender Jazz Bass. My one thing for her one thing. If only it were possible.

AWW — XoXo

*I believe my mother tried to sell my ballet shoes at our massive garage sale before our move to Alabama. Lucky for me, she overpriced them.

P.S. What’s your one thing?
Read 5 Surprising Objects with Sentimental Value
(added 11/30/11).

Posted under Adrienne & General | 4 Comments »

Last Sunday my husband and I went out to eat at Bea Bea’s, a restaurant known as the “Best Breakfast in Burbank.” It is always busy, but I was still surprised by the number of people spilling out the door. Then I remembered: it’s Mother’s Day.

As it turned out, my husband and I were the only party of two so we were immediately seated at the counter. When our waitress asked, “Are you a mother?” I hesitated.
I know she didn’t sense the pause because it only lasted less than one second, but for me it seemed like more than five minutes before I answered, “No.”
Smiling in her bright pink t-shirt, she replied, “Then happy Mother’s Day to your mother.” My mother? The one I don’t talk to. Who isn’t worthy of a card. I hate Mother’s Day.

Ten years ago, Mother’s Day was on Sunday, May 13. I remember because it was my last Mother’s Day with Adrienne. I remember because she made a big deal about it. She bought me a card and a candle composed of pink gel instead of wax. She cooked my favorite breakfast. Most of all, I remember it was our last Sunday of normal, and we didn’t even know it. Three days later, an ER doctor would say to me, “She [your sister Adrienne] has tumors in her liver and lungs.” I hate Mother’s Day.

My sister never called me mom or anything of the like. I was always “Sissy.” In fact, mother was a tainted word in our house. Mother was the woman who abandoned her. Mother was the woman who drugged her. Mother was the woman who lied without blinking, stole without conscious, and hurt without remorse. Mother was an addict. I hate Mother’s Day.

I looked up mother in the dictionary and discovered I agreed with its definition: “a female parent.” I didn’t call myself a mother, but I considered myself Adrienne’s parent. Even though our mother was still in the picture, I practically raised Adrienne from birth until I went away to college when she was four years old. Then I gained custody of her when she was eight and I was twenty-two. Our mother was, “Tired” and “Couldn’t do it anymore.” A Christmas vacation to Los Angeles turned into a permanent stay. I hate Mother’s Day.

To me, if you give birth or you contributed your seed, then you are a biological mother or biological father respectively. However, neither action makes you a parent. Being a parent is much more difficult. You are constantly worrying, doing, wondering, and questioning.

• Should I give into her tantrum?
• When can she walk to school by herself?
• Are her friends a bad influence?
• Is she too young to date?
• How can I help her with her math/science homework when I don’t understand it?
• Why does she push my buttons?
• Am I too strict? Not strict enough?

Children do not need a mother and a father. They need parents. Many kids are raised by their biological mother and father; some even experience happy childhoods. They are the fortunate ones. For others though, parents come in different forms: grandparents, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, strangers (e.g., stepparents). When asked in a survey who her parents were, Adrienne responded, “In my eyes Sissy and Johnny, but truly Myra and Terry.”*

Did you know that there is a Parent’s Day in America? You probably won’t find it on a calendar (I didn’t), but it was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994—the same year Adrienne came to live with me. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Replacing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day with Parent’s Day should be considered, as an observance more consistent with a policy of minimizing traditional sex-based differences in parental roles.” I guess no one heard her. Parent’s Day is celebrated the fourth Sunday of every July.

The next time someone asks me if I am a mother, I am going to say, “I was … once upon a time, and I raised the best kid ever.”

AWW — XoXo

*Johnny was my ex-boyfriend who helped me raise Adrienne the last five years of her life. Myra is our biological mother; Terry is Adrienne’s biological father who died in a car accident before she was born. (Adrienne and I were half-sisters.)

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When you lose a loved one, doctors, therapists, counselors, relatives, friends, and even strangers will tell you to talk to that person. I have resisted this idea for nine years. I have tried talking to my sister Adrienne at Hollywood Forever. When I stare at her tombstone surrounded by its beautiful garden, the words sound false, as if I’m having a conversation with the universe instead of her. However, I speak to Adrienne in my head all the time. I say a prayer to her every night. But I don’t actually talk out loud to her. To do so would be an acknowledgment that she is never coming back—a fact that is irrefutable but impossible for me to accept. However, several weeks ago I talked to Adrienne.

I own a beautiful painting of my sister—perhaps one of the greatest gifts that I have ever received; it hangs above our fireplace. I don’t know what possessed me to look at the painting and start speaking to Adrienne as if she were in the room. The words tumbled out of me like a small child running downhill—fearless, free, unstoppable. I kept talking and talking and talking until my voice reached the bottom of the hill and collapsed. I exhaled, but I don’t remember holding my breath. I swallowed, but I don’t remember my throat drying up. I touched my wet face, but I don’t remember crying. I looked at the clock; five minutes had passed. Then I heard her voice.

You’re making him live with a ghost. I didn’t actually hear Adrienne’s voice (although that would have been amazing), but I felt her presence and those words were hers, not mine. They seeped into my skin like lotion until I heard her again. You’re making him live with a ghost, Sissy. I felt compelled to stand up. I walked to the front door. I stood there. I became a stranger in my home. I looked around at the photographs because that is what I do when I enter someone’s house for the first time.

On the fireplace mantle, I see the mandatory wedding photo, a sick Adrienne, a healthy Adrienne and me, and two photos of my husband’s family. On top of the entertainment center, I spot my husband’s baby picture and another photo of Adrienne and me from my 27th birthday party. On the bookshelves, I see Adrienne in sixth grade, Adrienne and my ex’s son asleep in the car, my godson’s first Christmas, and a group shot of me and my bridesmaids from my wedding. I almost miss the framed photographic collage of Adrienne on top of our CD case. I realize there is only one picture of my husband and me in our living room. You’re making him live with a ghost.

The pictures on the bookshelves seem to be the biggest villains: I don’t see my godson or my ex’s son anymore, I am no longer close to two of my bridesmaids, and Adrienne didn’t even like her sixth grade photo. I have a sudden urge to knock them off in one sweeping gesture until I think about the possibility of broken glass. You can scrapbook the pictures, I tell myself. As for the others, I’ll leave my favorite photo of Adrienne and me in the living room, but the rest belong in the guest room, which was her room. My husband likes the painting so it will remain in its place. As I make these decisions, I feel Adrienne’s presence fade—her job is done.

I sit down and I think how incredibly patient my husband has been with me:

• My husband was on the fence about having children, but he compromised for my sake. I can’t do it all over again. Even though I didn’t gain custody of Adrienne until she was eight years old, I practically raised her from birth to age four. I love babies, but I have never wanted to be pregnant. However, I am opening up to the idea of adopting a young teenager—someone who needs good parents and a good home.
• My husband moved into a house that he didn’t like—a house where my sister died and where I lived with another man. The house grew on him over time, but he only moved in because I refused to leave. I didn’t think I would ever want to move away from this home, but now I am ready. I finally realize that leaving here doesn’t mean leaving Adrienne behind; the memories will travel with me.
• My husband has never said one word to me about the numerous photos of Adrienne in our living room. He has mentioned wanting more pictures of us around the house, but he has never pushed. If he had, it would have backfired. Instead, he waited. He let me become ready; he let me figure it out for myself—with a little help from Adrienne.

My husband understood what all of those well-intentioned people didn’t. Coping with loss takes time. Last year, I couldn’t say the “d” words as they related to my sister. Over two years ago, I wrote a poem titled Living on Euphemisms. The first time I read it aloud, I barely got through it.

It seems fitting that just before the anniversary of Adrienne’s death (October 9), I was finally able to talk to her. I know Adrienne is happy that I listened because ever since our conversation I have been hearing Queen everywhere, especially her favorite song Killer Queen. Sissy—I guarantee you’ll blow their minds.

A Blue Clamp composed of many people holds my aching heart together. What happened to my sister is not okay, it will never be okay, but now I can say, “Adrienne died.” Today, I’m talking to the dead.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. From Adrienne to all of you—Happy Halloween (her favorite holiday) and if you celebrate Día de los Muertos (another holiday Adrienne enjoyed), my thoughts are with you and your loved ones.

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