Mary Jane Part 1

My sister, Mary Jane, had Lupus.  She was twenty six when it was diagnosed and thirty six when she died.   I don't have all that many memories of her when she was young.  A lot of it was due to my age but even more was due to her not living with us much at all.  She stayed with our Aunt Dixie (mother's sister) so she could go to school and the Kingdom Hall (What Jehovah's Witnesses call church).  I can't imagine how my Dad felt about that as he absolutely despised Jehovah's Witnesses.  But, that was the way it was.

My memories of my sister are quite limited in her younger years.  I mostly remember her after she married.  That was in 1967 I believe.  That was the same year we moved from West Van Lear back down to Nat's Creek so my mother could take care of my grandparents.  It is difficult for me to fathom that has been nearly a half century ago. 

We lived in the old, Charlie Blessing house and paid Frank Blessing fifteen dollars a month rent.  It was at least a half mile (probably farther) from there to where my grandparents lived.  It was a nice walk and walking was the only means of transportation we had.

Mary Jane had her two sons quite close together and of a summer I'd go spend time at their house and help with the boys and chores around the house.  They lived in Homer's (my brother-in-law) old family house.  Like most old places it had a well and an outhouse.  Of course where I lived on Nat's Creek was the same so it all felt familiar to me.  It was just normal and not an inconvenience.

I always did the dishes after meals while listening to WSIP on the radio (Paintsville).  They played mostly country music with just a couple of half-hour interludes of top 40 music.  I was washing dishes in the kitchen when the news of Robert Kennedy's assassination came through.  I was devastated as I was convinced he was going to be the next American President and would be a great one.  Sirhan Sirhan did it but I've never been convinced of his reasons.  Robert Kennedy was Attorney General during his brother's (JFK) Presidency and he was hard on organized crime.  In fact one of the theories on the JFK assassination is that the mob did it.  I think the mob may have feared a Robert Kennedy presidency and had him killed as well.  Just an opinion of mine as there is no evidence to support it.

Anyhow, as usual, I ramble on about things not relevant to the subject. 

My sister was a lovely young woman.  She stood about 5' 2" and weighed about 108 lb when she was married at age 23.  She was a very strong-willed woman.  During her sickness the doctors told her she would never walk again but she ordered one of those exercisers where you attach it to the wall and use pulleys to move your arms and legs and she worked on it until she did get up out of her bed and walk.  A true VanHoose.  Can teach a mule about how to be stubborn.

In her final months she was in the Highlands Regional Hospital and everyone knew she was not coming home again.  It had been like that  for years.  She'd get really bad then recover.  But, not to the level where she was as good as before.  We all knew it was just a race to see which crucial organ would fail first.  It was a stressful time for all of us.

I had been taking welding class at a local Vocational school at night and working in the days.  After the end of my welding class and the end of my job my brother-in-law and I split staying with my sister 24 hours a day.  He took the night shift and I did days.  We did a lot of talking until she became too ill to speak.  Mostly it was like a coma.  She just lay there and we just sat and looked on.  Like I said it was a stressful time.

I guess that is when I first got into prescription drugs and alcohol.  After coming home in the evening I could not sleep.  My doctor (who was the same doctor as my sister) gave me Valium prescriptions and I was going through about thirty a week.   None during the day just during the evening when I got home.  I would sit at the kitchen table while everyone else in the house was asleep and take Valium and drink Canadian Mist whiskey until I could sleep.  This went on 24/7 for months. 

On the night my sister passed away, I don't recall why, but both I and my brother-in-law were in her room chatting.  All of a sudden she sat up in bed and said, "I can't move my hands".  Her hands were under the blankets.  We were both stunned as she had been comatose for several weeks.  Then she sank back into the bed and was silent again.  It was not long after that I noticed I could not see her breathing.  I used the call button for the nurse and told her I did not think my sister was breathing.

I was right.  She wasn't and they took her away in about thirty minutes and the next time we saw her was in a coffin at the funeral home.  It was rough for us be we all knew how sick she had been and all the pain and suffering she had endured so we were, at the same time, relieved she was out of all that.

Even though I don't recall a lot about her I am convinced she was the best of all of us.  I think my brother would agree with me on that.  She was a VanHoose through and through with all the stubbornness, temper and love for "bad things" as were the rest of us but she also was the only one who was mostly on the good side of the line.  I wish my sister could have watched her kids grow up to be men and have seen her grand children as I know she would have loved them all.  I wish she could have known my children and my grandchildren as well.  That did not happen, however and there is no changing the past to make it more to our liking.

My sister has been dead for over thirty years now and I still miss her.