This is the beginning of a story. A story I know well. I don't remember it all, but what I do remember I want to put in writing. 

My baby sister before the storm.

    There was no reason for us to make that phone call. We were rebellious, ignorant and had guts. Why else would 2 girls aged 8 and 9 make a prank call to 911.

    Mom left us alone while she took the babysitter home, this was plenty of time to make some prank calls. We lived out in the sticks. Few babysitters who would brave babysitting the Heward clan, lived at least 20 minutes away. We were a rowdy bunch of heathens. We rarely listened to our sitters and ran around wild, daring her to keep us contained. So, I guess making a prank call to 911 wasn't so far fetched.

    I remember the feeling. My older sister, by only 13 months, on the phone with the dispatch, my stomach felt sick and my heart was banging against my ribs. I knew it was wrong, and if we were found out, we'd be in the biggest trouble of our short lives. I also felt exhilarated, like we had done some thing bold, beyond our grasp of childhood power, we were out in the place of no return now. “ Our sister fell off the deck and broke her leg.” I could hear my sister on the other receiver, while I was in my parents room, hiding listening to this lie. The dispatch sounded urgent while my sister answered her questions and then hung up after saying “ an ambulance will be out as soon as it can.” We were in deep now. No backing out. My stomach came up in my chest and I found it hard to breath. I ran out of my hiding place, to meet my sisters horrified face. We knew what we had done was probably the most horrible prank anyone could pull. We were mortified. We were in deep !@#$%^&*!

    Mom arrived about 10 minutes later. “There's an ambulance driving around down there, I wonder where they are going, I hope everyone is ok.” she said, as she came in the door. Turning and finding my sister and I in a state of overwhelming anxiety and tears of guilt sheeting our faces, she knew exactly who's home they were looking for. I broke down sobbing and pouring out my sick feelings of angst and fear at what we had done. My mother's face was full of scorn. She couldn't believe her two young girls had done such a horrific prank. I ran and hid under my bed after she mentioned we'd be apologizing as soon as they made their way, to our hidden house on the hill.

    Tears streaking my freckled face, head down, I wobbled out on to the front porch. Ambulance headlights shining brightly in my red eyes. My heart was beating out of my chest and only  choked a, “I'm sorry.”  I was barely audible, as the  relieved EMT's looked down on my sister and I. At that moment, there was no possible way for me to conceive the pivotal importance this moment would have on my life. And even more importantly on the life of my baby sister. We could never have known that our horrible prank, would be the very act that saved my sisters life. The EMT's were able to get to our house in time and with proficiency to save my baby sisters life, because 2 young girls had pulled an unbelievable prank.

  
  I walked the mile from the bus stop that sunny afternoon, just like I always did.  My Star Wars metal lunch pail dangling from one hand. Up the windy paved hill and down the other side. At the dirt drive to our house, I could either cut up through the coral or I could wind over and up the drive. I chose the coral that day. It was a trudge straight up the sagebrush and short grass hill. The horses were way over in the South corner. I could see their backs and an occasional whipping of tails waving off the flies. I was content. I had had a good day at school. I loved school. It was a wonderful haven for me. I adored it's structure and the ability to use my inquisitive mind, and my social flare. I was a bright and attentive student. I was my one of my teachers favorites. Still, being home was one of my most favorite times of the day. We lived way out in the country. My cousins used to complain at how far we lived from Boise. Back then, my best friend's dad owned a 300 acre parcel of land that he cattle ranched. It was at the corner of Floating Feather and Highway 55. We used to swing on ropes in the enormous barn and swim through the grain in the 40 foot tall silos. I was a country girl. I grew up riding horses, swimming in the ditches and water skiing on the Payette lake. It was all very idealistic looking back on it now.

    I knew something wasn't right the minute I reached the top of the coral and saw my mom's car not there, and my neighbors car parked where mom's should have been. My neighbor hardly talked to my family, let alone came over. I was alarmed walking into the quiet house. Our home was rarely quiet. I was one of 5 children, 3 of them being younger then I , and one was only 2 years old. There was always noise and something going on. My neighbor was sitting anxiously on the couch. A look of concern on her face. She was there to give me news that would be the worst I'd ever hear again. The world as I new it, my little castle of country bliss, was about to be pulled down around me. My family was about to receive a hard blow, a tornado just came silently into our lives and ripped each of our hearts apart. From this moment forward, we would all be left to mend the best that we could.

    I came out of the daze of the catastrophe, walking into Elks Rehabilitation hospital. I was there to see my baby sister. She had just had a freak accident, pinching her spine into mush at her T 12 vertebrae. Her and my brother had been playing outside and in moments the chest press that had been there for months, came out of the cradle and slammed into her small toddler body. My sweet baby sister was lying, dark circles under her eyes, tubes coming from her arms, in a sterile, over sized, metal crib. It smelled of Lysol and plastic. She was slow and lethargic. Her sunken, drugged eyes looked up at me, full of the pain she had just endured. Her chubby baby hand reached for me as her face grew into a wide, happy grin. My heart broke at that moment. And reflecting on it now. I realize it has never completely mended. All of us lost our baby that day. My baby sister would forever have pain as a companion. Her best friend for the rest of her life would be pain. She would be intimately connected, and know all of it's idiosyncrasies. They would hold hands while out on the town, they would sing songs together on a rainy day, they would cry broken heartedly in the dark. This was my sisters life. She was about to embark on a arduous journey. She would have to be brave, a lion heart.

    My families hearts were broken too. The tornado had done a beautiful job of scattering our minds and hearts to the winds and shredding them like in a wood chipper. The first big blow after the accident, was my dad falling into a hole from the hurt. Mom kept her whits to help us all put on our dust masks while it settled. I never saw my parents again. The two ambitious, attentive and fun-loving parents I had before the storm where replaced with sad, guilt ridden aliens. My dad once a full of Moxie entrepreneur full of bear stories and silliness, was hardly ever around again and the nightly bed time stories were never heard again. My mother was hardly present due to therapy appointments and the need to work at times. It was as if my parents had lost their faith, their faith in life being what you make it. We were taught that with a positive attitude and hard work anything was possible. Well, that just wasn't the truth anymore. We also lost our beloved cabin on the lake, in KP Cove that year, our oasis in the mountains, our heaven. None of us wanted to go up there anyway. We would grief this loss much later, and it would always be a sore in our hearts later as adults. We lost our house next. No more running through the pasture to catch our ponies, no more watching tremendous wind storms, safe in our log home, no more horse back rides down to dry creek, no more sitting by the wood stove at night listening to coyotes. It was gone. Our baby sister was gone. Our family was gone. Our lives were gone. It was over. The end.

    My memories of this time immediately after my sisters accident are vague, they are  fragments sewn loosely together with thin thread. When I go back to the most painful memories in my childhood they are all knit up in this smoky web, this vague, painful time where no memories exist.

   The fond memories started to come later on. After the hospital, after the dust settled on the wreckage. We pulled some threads together and started slowly assembling a life.  Achingly joy started creeping back in again. My baby sister soon had laughs and genuine four year old smiles and squeals of pure love.

    We doted on this sweet little sister that needed us now for more then just rough housing and piggy backs. There were braces and crutches to wrestle on, our favorite was tugging to tight of tights up over chubby thighs while laughing about rolls. There were catheters to figure out and big scares to smooth our fingers over. There were ways to get our sister from one place to another in a fashion that was as fun and efficient as possible.  We had to watch for burns on her feet, the hot tail pipe of the Honda 90 was undetected on her sweet, numb, baby feet. There were constant trips to Elks for therapy and she was enrolled in preschool there too. We had to be “ mindful of her back", and " You kids quick being so rough with your sister." Grandma would loudly remind us, as we drug our little sister around on a blanket on the floor. We pull her over the bumpy yard in the wagon and jostle her in the milk crate on the back of the motorcycle through the pasture. When I was 12 years old, my grandpa taught me how to ride the Honda Trail 90. Being out in the country, this was a dream. I could cruise up and down the dirt roads, ride to a friends quicker than running, and give rides to my exuberant younger siblings. By this time, there was one more added to the clan. We were now a clan of 6. The baby sister was no longer the baby. The tiara was passed to real baby of the bunch, and wonderfully the fun companion to my other little baby sister. They were inseparable. If you gave one a ride, then the other had to have one too. So, it was competition for the most laughs and adventure at all times. I'd ride my little sisters around on the Honda for hours. Through the fields, down the roads and over to see our neighbors horses or any old thing that would bring the most entertainment. Those days were full of joy.

    The tornado had been mostly forgotten by my 12th year, and it was the good ole days of playing kick the can way past dark at grandma and grandpa's place in the summer, and being pulled through the snow, with my dad, behind the horses in the winter. The memories of this time come flowing into view. There are so many, they are vying for top place. We had made it out alive. We had put enough pieces together to at least limp and most of the time skip forward.

    There is more pain in my growing up then I care to admit at times. We moved a lot and my parents struggled to make things normal. I think they were blown apart more intensely than us resilient kids. I look back at my memories and I know I have seen and felt great pain, and hurt and devastation. I also look back and know, through it all and maybe in spite of it all. At it's most exquisite, possible, ability, there is a seed of tremendous joy. This is the stuff, the stuff that gives me and my family the strength and ability to rise out of shit and heart break and to thrive. I have been through some really stupid and lame times in my life. And still, I believe in majik, and love, and beauty. I know what it looks like and feels like to lose it all, to die and to come back to life. I know, because I died once. My baby sister died once. My family died once. And we lived again. 
    It may seem clique, and I know my sister hates being an inspiration, but she is mine. There have been many times in my life where I say, “ If she can do it” or “ What the fuck am I complaining about?” Life is a mystery, someone said, and we never know when it might end or if a house is going to land on our heads. The only thing I do know for certain is, we live and we can chose how we live. We can truly live or we can just live. I already chose along time ago, while picking up after a storm, the kind of living I wanted. I wanted to truly live to take a bite out of it all. I never knew when a storm might hit again. I think I taught my children to do the same. I can only wish. That is my wish for my family too.

I love you family. I want you all to live and to truly live. I adore you all. I love you Lace, I am a better person because of who you are, and all you endure & have over come.