Remember Me .

March 18, 2021

Dear SaSa,

It’s been a year since you have been living on your own.

Covid has given me time to think of some things I want to say to you… if a day comes that we don’t see each other again.

It was St. Patrick’s Day 1982 which marked your upcoming entrance to this world, sometimes I still think it was symbolic. Symbolic because it forced our parents to understand you on your terms. You forced our father to put down the drink for the first time. Huge accomplishments for someone who’d yet to be born.

You were fast to learn, I always thought, always copy the things I did but you never talked. The frustrations with our life were impossible for you to tolerate. You refused to do what you were told, and I followed suit…because that’s how we rolled.

She-ra and Wonder woman.

It was 1986 when Mom and I attempted to take you on your first subway ride to the Albert Einstein institute. The 7 trains roared above us on the elevated tracks carrying their herds. The rails and wheels with their deafening grind, ignored by most except the pigeons. The frictional noise of the train beat down on you like a hammer. Your tiny hands instinctively covered your ears as you buried your face in my chest. I could feel the cold vibrations of your tears and screams as I wrapped my arms around your head to protect you. I lowered my eyes to yours’, but you could never meet my gaze. Our Mom just watched in fear as I held you, afraid of our neighbors’ judgments. They couldn’t help but look at a tiny four-year-old with pigtails, just screaming fragments of words and trying to run from the unseen. But I knew what would distract you and that was Oscar the Grouch, “Calm her down! Give her Oscar for Christ’s sake! I’m going to get a gypsy cab, they’ll take Sarah.” My Mom ordered; I always carried Oscar with me when we left the house, you loved him …just like I loved you.

At the end of that day, I found out just how special you were.

The doctor explained you were Autistic and unique because… you were also female. In 1986 little was known of Autism and how it affected the female population. On that day you became part of a program to study and develop an education system to help others in the future, just as special as you. And you showed them a world they never understood about Autism. Though you were limited to speaking single words, you could discuss your thoughts further when they taught you sign language. You were able to demonstrate that you could comprehend the world and interact with it.

A puzzle a day always did put your mind at bay… when problems began to loom.

I was always impressed on how you consciously absorbed the world as a whole and attempted to understand it in smaller pieces in your own reality. When puzzles were presented to you, it blew the doctors minds on how fast you could figure them out…but I always knew what you were capable of.

The life of a teenager didn’t escape you and there was no way you would be left behind.

The teenage years you always reminded me you were no longer my little sister. By the time you were 11, you showed your Queens attitude. One day, being your bold self, I was grounded by dad for taking you to Tarzan’s Island, the old postal factory. There were 30 of us at a cut-out party and you saved us from the JD cards when you ran on my cue. The cops didn’t know what to believe when I said we were there looking for you, but you were the schoolyard hero that day. But when dad try to keep us home after that you broke free on the Dessert Rose…you knocked him down and rode that bike straight out the door.

And I never stopped following you.

Even when the kids turned from cheering to jeering, you would always turn and put on your fake smile. It always made me laugh because it was our father’s imitated smile… when he had no dentures. All Gums. You were a pro at impressions and didn’t even know when you put bullies in their place. Showing the world their ignorance was always your true calling in life.

And when Life called you soared.

The chaos after Dad passed left a lot on your plate because Social Security and Medicare dropped your funding for program . Your program services had been suspended and were back to being with me every day for a year. Stuck with your nephew, the mini devil, Devin. You insisted on calling him Oscar ever-day. When you would go to the park with him, you stopped him from running across the street. It’s like you knew what he was up to, “No, NO, NO” is what you said as he clawed at your hand to be free of your grasp, but you didn’t let go. You didn’t let go because you loved him and laughed the whole time you dragged him back.

Devin still talks about that story and how he loved how you swung him around as a kid. The only person who would sit and play Blue’s Clues all day.

If patience is a virtue, you are a saint.

Those few years you looked after Mom when I moved out, you kept her motivated to live. Mom struggled for years after Dad passed. Looking back now Sarah, we all made mistakes and I was selfish to bring you on all my quests and leave you with my burdens. After a while, leaving you for that time, I realize, I left you to fend for yourself when I fell out with our Mother.

But I knew you were a Phoenix, because I’ve seen you transform through the flames.

Last year, we finally found a place of your own through Lifespire.

On March 10, 2020, you finally found your own place in this world. A house with five amazing individuals and a new “boyfriend” that you openly allowed into your life. Amazed how effortlessly you moved on to your new life …even during Covid. You had only been there a week when the lockdown began, and we could only see you through a screen…literally. A first, everyone assumed that you would not adjust to such an extreme change, but you did.

I only hope that I can heal from the fires of life like you have.

Love always,

Nonie