Today I find myself in a waiting room……waiting, with my big sister in an operating room. Not the best way to spend a afternoon for me or her, but I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

At this very moment she is being given a new eye….actually eyesight to be more precise! She has opted for Lasik eye laser surgery to correct her vision, left one today then right one next week.

I thought I was free from the smells, sounds and basic creepiness of a surgical area, they took her back, whew,……! Home free….. Then to my dismay I hear her name yelled…..“follow me ma’am!” Really? Oookkaayy…..I say attempting to be glad about it. Apparently they don’t know of my panic attack capabilities!

As I am taken down the long hall (there is always a long hall with sick people laying all around- eyes strait ahead!) I get to her little curtained area. There she us looking freakishly just like our Mom. They are putting drops in the one eye to dilate….ugh, really I must be here?….so I smile, attempt to be caring..( not that I am not caring, I for sure am but I refer back to the surgical stuff) I sit beside her as she is spaced out. Not even sure if she has officially been spaced out yet, prolly just her goofy self. Like me, because I do too when in this position, she is getting high from the oxygen! “breathe it in sister” I tell her, it’s natural…sorta.

She fades in and out, me talking aimlessly(as usual) telling her how if she dies she will be in heaven lopsided with one good eye and one bad eye! Okay I know in heaven we are all good and totally healed of all ailments….but this was funnier! And then since I have her keys, I will get to her house before her only child, her daughter, which has been my plan all along! I WILL get those cross-stiched pillows and the old albums, Beatles, Harry Nielson(The Point), CCR, and many others. And she doesn’t even know how I will handle those two in-door cats of hers…..here kitty kitty…look outside!

These possessions of hers are part of MY memories, not the daughters. I was first ya know! My big sister practically raised me along with my other sister. These bits of memorabilia are my childhood; falling to sleep at night listening to albums on the stereo and putting the arm back so they replay. Anyone but me remember real stereos? That music is forever etched on my brain.

The pillows are from the spell when she was into needlepoint and created her own designs….she was one of the original hippies in the ’70’s! In Murfreesboro, TN at Middle TN State University. She was the coolest of the cool, for me a kid of eleven and beyond! Needless to say I loved life back then and I will always be indebted to her for the lessons she taught me.

She must be finished…….They’re they came, yelling her name again, back down the long hall once again, oh Lord tons of sick people this time…..whew getting hot in here already…..I may pass out before I get to her. But no… I survived, she is sitting there looking good. Looking around like she has never seen this world before, totally funny by the way. The nurse rattles on instructions as if we will remember. Oh jeez lady will there be a test? We got it!

Being us we are ready to go, they make her wait till I get the car, she grinches about that one, funny. She walks out all bleary eyed. On to our fav Pizza Parlour…family tradition ya know. Its been like sixteen hours plus since she had eaten…starving is the word now! So she survived this episode and we get to do it all over again next week.

Good times, she is doing great and those darn cats of hers will live to see another week. That was the second thing I would do if something bad happened, the cats would be “accidentally” set free! Silly nine lived animals, they are driving her crazy and me too by osmosis!

God is good, big Sis is still cool, all’s well with the world! I am thankful that I can help her in this little way…can never pay her back for all she has done for me. She is a Good Old Girl by the way!!!!