It was PINK!

This is another one of those “Sam was sick” stories. It was a normal night in the Cleland/Pryzgoda household. Our mother had decided during the divorce that she was going to keep our father’s last name. She said she didn’t want a different last name than her children. I think that gesture speaks droves about our mom.

Anyway, normal night, I think it was Friday. Sam had been sick all week, and at this time we were sharing a room and bunk beds so while she was upstairs in bed, I was avoiding the room. As I mentioned, we rarely could agree on what TV show to watch and at that point Mom had set up a TV and VCR to watch in our room while Sam was stuck in bed. Needless to say, when she was sick I always lost the argument of what we were going to watch. So, tonight I was downstairs with Grandma and Grandpa watching Fawlty Towers rather than bothering with the upstairs television at all.

Earlier in the evening, Grandpa had come home with a platter of shrimp cocktail. Sam’s favorite. Sam LOVED shrimp. It didn’t particularly matter what form it was in. If it was shrimp, Sam loved it… so obviously being presented with an entire platter of shrimp sent her into a euphoria of crustacean joy. She ate the whole platter pretty much by herself. After that, she wandered into the living room with her heart blanket and passed out on the love seat.

We were about halfway through an episode of that zany British show, giggling at Basil’s antics, before Sam appeared at the base of the stairs. She had her heart blanket clung to her chest and it was the first time I’d ever seen anyone look GREEN. She stood there a moment in silence as the three of us slowly turned our attention to Sam.

Grandma finally spoke up, “Honey, are you feeling ok?”

Sam shook her head and when she opened her mouth, no words came out. Instead a steady pink faucet of chum projected in an arch across the family room, even going so far as to cross my line of sight to the television. Not only was the arch of refuse bright pink, but the sheer smell of dead fish and bile easily could have turned the most stalwart man’s stomach. So, weird color, terrible smell and it just went on. She puked in one steady heave for, I swear, thirty seconds. It just kept coming until it began forming a chunky pile about three feet in front of my sister.

The monstrosity of a moment finally drew to an end and my sister was again standing in silence, pink goo dribbling down her chin and tears in her eyes. We all sat in silence, staring at Sam. It was our Grandfather who finally spoke up, “You feel better now, sweetheart?”

Sam bobbed her head and he stood to carry her upstairs to clean up and put her in bed, leaving Grandma and I still in a stunned and disgusted silence. We both covered our noses and stood to begin cleaning up the mess.

There was a massive pink stain on our family room carpet up until the day we actually moved out. Like a disgusting testament to the capability of the human body and will of a little girl.

A Cruel Rejection

This next story I don’t particularly remember clearly, but it was our mother that regaled me with the tale in my ‘teens and I’ve felt utterly guilty for it since. This tidbit is about the cruelty of children. Namely how cruel I was as a child.

Let me back up a little bit and give some exposition on who Samantha was at four years old. Sam was much different than I was. I had always been a shy child. I always said “please” and “thank you.” I was generally soft-spoken  to the point that our grandmother would make me repeat myself over and over until she gave up on trying to hear whatever it was I was trying to say.

Sam was none of these things. In fact, even physically we were completely different. I had straight, dark brown hair. She had golden and long curls that looked like something you’d find painted across a the page of a fairy tale. I had dark brown eyes while Samantha had rich grey/blue eyes that changed hue depending on the color she was wearing. Even at seven and a half, I was unreasonably jealous of my sister’s beauty.

Not to mention the fact that Sam had the ability to entrance an entire room just by walking in. You see, Sam didn’t actually walk anywhere. Normal people walk… but Sam wasn’t normal. Sam danced wherever she went. I’m not kidding. The kid didn’t walk or run. She danced and skipped. On top of that, unlike me who rarely spoke, she talked all the time. And not just talked, she sang. If Sam had something to tell you, you’d get a light hearted aria or a tragic ballad rather than the usual disjointed stories children tell.

She was magical. People saw it too. And here I was, a normal kid a little bit too short for her age constantly upstaged by her baby sister. Beyond that Samantha was sick. How was I ever going to compete with that?!

I’m not talking about a cold either. Until the age of twelve, my sister was constantly in and out of the hospital because of a mystery illness… but we’ll get to the details of that a little bit later.

Now that you have a better idea of just what I was dealing with at the time and where my mind was at, the cruelty of the lines that follow hopefully will have a little perspective.

It was an early evening in our house on Chrisanta in Mission Viejo, CA. Simple suburban living. Back in those days my sister and I were both addicted to the show Fraggle Rock. Now as all you old schoolers know, Fraggle Rock was only on HBO. Any time the HBO intro logo came on (you know, the one that made the “BwoooooooOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” sound), Sam and I came  running from whatever room we had been in in hopes that soon we would be watching the antics of Red and Mokey. * (**Sam swears up and down to this day that her favorite fraggle was not Red and it was Mokey… but I clearly remember her bouncing around pounding on walls and calling herself “Red” with pigtails in her hair.)

I was already sitting in front of the television this particular evening with a blanket and glass of juice, ready for the impending story of doozers and fraggles to commence. Sam wandered in, not feeling particularly well. She had her “heart blanket” with her. When Sam first started getting really sick, our Mom made her a special little quilt lovingly named the “heart blanket.” You could tell Sam really wasn’t feeling well if she was dragging that thing around.

Tonight was one of those nights.

She was so sick at this point she couldn’t dance. She couldn’t even walk. Along with her heart blanket, this poor, withered, little creature was dragging a bucket. Like the heart blanket, Sam had a medium sized bucket to carry with her if she wasn’t feeling well as she had bouts of vomiting that went along with her illness.

So, here I was wrapped up and ready to go and up crawls Sam and heaves herself beside me in front of the TV with her blanket wrapped around her and her bucket sitting in her lap. And soon after, I did the only thing I will truly regret for the entirety of my life. As the show began, Sam could barely keep herself upright so she began slowly leaning. Eventually she was leaning against my side. She was up in my personal space. I was going to have none of it.

Instead of quietly asking Sam to move over, or gently redirecting her to lay on the floor… I shoved her. Hard. So hard that she went toppling to her side and just lay there and began to cry. Great! Now I was going to be in trouble. In a miniature fit, I stood up and threw my empty cup down then stormed off leaving my poor, sick sister crying on the floor.

Even now, typing the story out I can feel myself begin to tear up. As a child you don’t realize the depths of your actions until you’ve aged to a point that you can appreciate the moments. Now, I look back at that story and feel a deep sense of remorse. It was small and brief. Even Sam has told me that she forgives me and doesn’t really remember it, but I know within me I have an ability to be cruel and without compassion. That for a time my jealousy was so potent that I couldn’t see that my sick sister that I love with all my heart just wanted to cuddle and take comfort with me.

Sam has told me on more than one occasion not to regret because that forfeits the rights of your life. Because if you didn’t do the things you have done, you wouldn’t be who you are now. Of course, she said it much differently during those conversations. Sam always has a way of embedding wisdom in layers of zany ridiculousness. Like, “I ran over a rabbit today and I mourned its death, but then I realized that maybe that rabbit was the reincarnation of Hitler. It was bunny Hitler and I didn’t feel so bad.” It’s an art.

Yes, Sam really believes she killed bunny Hitler.