To be perfectly honest, 2001 really sucked for me'mediocre grades, the increasing fear of dying if I board an airplane or open a letter and the girl I've been seeing upping the restraining order from 100 to 500 yards. But there is one thing that I'm grateful for this year.
My sister baked a turkey.
It seems kind of an odd thing to be thankful for. I'm not a big fan of turkey, and I'm not particularly bloodthirsty for the noble fowl which Benjamin Franklin lobbied to have become our national symbol. The reason is little more complex than that.
On a clear April day, my sister Lan was in Detroit playing with the Minnesota women's rugby team. During a scrum, her neck snapped like a twig, leaving her whimpering on the ground without the ability to feel anything below her neck. It turned out she broke her C4 vertebra. If she broke her C3 or C5, she could have damaged the nerves which controlled her breathing. Hence, she would have hyperventilated and died.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, I was eating breakfast in my dorm room when my father called. A man with a James-Earl-Jones-type booming voice, my dad could barely muster a whisper that my sis was lying in a Detroit hospital. The doctors told him they didn't know what the outcome would be, but the best-case scenario was paralyzation, the worst-case, death. Either way, they wouldn't know for another six hours. While the parents drove frantically to Detroit, I was left in my room to finish my breakfast.
The only thing was, I couldn't do it. For the first time in my life, I couldn't eat. In fact, I couldn't do much. I tried talking, but all I could do for the first few hours in limbo was stutter. I tried doing homework, but I couldn't type or hold a clear thought in my head. How could my sister almost die? What will Matt, her husband, do? What will I do without her?
The first feeling was helplessness, which gave way to anger. I wasn't angry at God. I wasn't angry at the player who collided with her. I wasn't even mad at the game which left her lying unconscious in a hospital without any family around her. I was angry at myself. For the times I fought with her over the remote. For the times I didn't want to hang out with her. For the times I held myself back in telling her that I loved her. All I could do was cry, and pray that I wouldn't have to regret it for the rest of my life.
It turned out that she would be okay. After months of physical therapy, she's back walking and talking, a tiny miracle considering it happened only seven months ago. I spent my summer driving her to her physical therapy sessions, shopping with her (something which I never thought I'd enjoy) and talking to her every week.
So this Thanksgiving, the family had dinner at her place. She made the turkey and carried the eight-pound bird to the table, seven months after not being able to lift a one-pound weight.
In this period of our lives, when thousands of families will not have a loved one around because of the horrible tragedy in September or because they're serving their country right now, I ask you to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. As for me, I'm resolving to tell those I love how much I love them, like my sister Lan.
That and getting that restraining order lifted.
