Visit #4

THE IMPASSE

My head and my heart are not talking.

Much like siblings, they have had a disagreement. They had been getting along so well until the 2nd anniversary of Suzi’s death had to show up and ruin everything.

We have experienced our fair share of sibling squabbles over the years. It’s a hallmark of large families–especially when affection and attention from parents are sliced into much smaller pieces, in our case, seven to be exact.

The early years within our household brought the usual kid fights over toys, chores, or the occasional ganging up on one another. Our father, larger than life both figuratively and literally, would put a swift end to any internal uprisings long before they could escalate. This was around the same time our parents Ford Country Squire often exited the driveway for the Yale Polo Grounds (or later Yankee Stadium) to watch their beloved New York football Giants and Suzi was left in charge. Quickly, it was clear that our eldest sister chose to adopt the Joseph Stalin type of dictatorship as her way to manage us all. She would later describe it as her being a contestant on an early version of the TV show SURVIVOR. Their taillights had barely left our street when she began setting the house clocks back so as to trick us all into an earlier bedtime. Soon after, she would lock herself in the bathroom in the most dramatic of fashions threatening to expose our awful behavior and lack of listening skills to our parents all while sneaking both her petite princess phone and stash of cigarettes into the bathroom with her and locking herself in for the duration of the afternoon. Truth be told, she spent much of the time our parents were away NOT watching us yet instead guilting us into behaving or better yet, bribing us with those take home hamburgers and fries she brought to us from her very first job at a new restaurant in our town called McDonalds. Her strategy proved most successful. Everything and everyone were always in one piece upon their return. Our parents would marvel at the management skills she possessed as well as her uncanny ability to help us all get along during their absence. Suzanne the Conqueror was crowned!

Not long after that, our Mom entered back into the workforce. With more of us pitching in to help with the younger ones, Suzi loved to tease that it now took at least 3 of us to do what she had been able to manage by herself for years. Little did she know how spot on she was and how well into our adulthood she would remain our forever babysitter.

Being a few years older, she was in college by the time the rest of us entered those difficult teenage bickering years. Sharing (or not) clothes, cars, boys and very close quarters made for some doozy fights. For the most part, Suzi missed most of all that. She was busy fighting her own independence battle with our parents. They had spent years nurturing and building this close family dynasty only to have to stand by and watch the first of us break away to become a free-standing human being.

Somehow, through all the madness, our family endured. Exactly how, I am not sure but I can only surmise that it was very simply the good sibling bond carefully crafted and set in place by our parents very early in our existence. Ultimately, they knew our relationships with each other would be the most important and long lasting of our lives.

Three years ago, when some of us were not playing well together in an (adult) sandbox and we no longer had our Dad to do the squashing, Suzi speculated to me in a text how she thought the (then) sibling skirmish would eventually end. She wrote:

“Luckily for our family the sum of the strengths is greater than the whole. That’s why it works so well.”

So maybe I’ll treat my head, who reminds me too often she is gone, and my heart, who will not let her go, like a sibling quarrel. I will keep them separated until they are calm and give them a little space until they can figure it out.

Happy 3rd birthday in heaven Suzi. Thank you for the words and memories you left for us all. You are loved and missed every day.