The Girl on the Wall

The portrait of the young girl hangs on our living room wall for as long as I can remember. In her old-fashioned dress, she smiles demurely.

Steph, Katie and Jess, my sister Mary's daughters

I assume she's another knock-off print from the Green Stamp Store like Pinkie and Blue Boy. Mom has us kids licking stamps at the kitchen table like a small assembly line, and that's how she triumphantly acquires our living room decor.  A self-absorbed child, I am never once curious about the girl on the wall - not until after I've left for college. One weekend, home from school, I find myself curiously studying the young woman from another time. At once I feel a spark of recognition.

"Who's this girl, Mom?" I ask.

She looks up, surprised at my sudden interest. We've lugged basket after basket of laundry through the living room when we abruptly collapse on the sofa.

"My grandmother," she sighs, sinking into cushions.

Stunned, I notice for the first time the girl's cheekbones - so like Mom's. Not once have I ever heard my mother speak of her grandmother.

Mom shifts the basket beside her. "She died before I was born - when my dad was young."

Morgan, my sister Carry's
daughter

The girl, I learn, is Luella. In the picture, she's just graduated from high school. Later she will marry and give birth to two boys - the oldest is Allen, my grandfather. Luella is 39 when she learns she's dying of breast cancer.

"Allen," she says steadily to my twelve-year-old grandfather. "I need you to watch out for your baby brother. And your dad. He'll have a hard time."

Allen nods solemnly. Then he does something that later will cause him great shame. He lays his head on his mother's lap and cries like a baby. But for the rest of his life he will keep his promise.

The story I hear that day for the first time is tragic for another reason. My own young mother, who is beautiful and funny and escapes to her beloved piano on days my dad and all of us overwhelm her for attention, has herself been diagnosed with breast cancer. Wordless, she and I stare at each other over laundry baskets.

Samantha and Emily, my
brother Rick's daughters

"It won't happen to you, Mom," I finally say.

But it does. Just 18 months later. At one o'clock in the morning in cold April darkness, Mom leaves us forever. I am the oldest of ten, and my youngest brother Jeff is seven-years-old. Our giant of a father puts aside his own grief to make us feel safe, and my siblings and I depend on him and each other as we never have before.

After Mom's death, I study the picture of Luella intently searching her face. For what, I don't know. But I desperately wonder if my sisters and I, like Mom, will share Luella's fate.

Not long after Mom dies, my 12-year-old sister Terri comes to me, her eyes wide with fear.

"I have breast cancer," she says.

"Terri," I say, "you don't have cancer."

Her eyes fill. "I do. I have a lump."

Sydney, Brandi and Nikki, my
sister Deb's daughters

 I examine the lump which turns out to be a bone.

 "Everybody has it," I assure her. Relief fills her small face.

So closely connected are we to Mom that my sisters Deb, Mary, Terri, Carry and I feel certain we will all  die as young women. We schedule our mammograms and then plan our funerals as we wait in agony for the  results.

"My brother Tom should deliver my eulogy," I blurt  out of the blue to my husband one day. We've been  strolling around the lake together chatting about our son's elementary Christmas program when I make this sudden declaration.

My husband John patiently sighs. "Don't tell me. It must be mammogram time."

This is the way it is. I live one year at a time - from mammogram to mammogram.

Kailey, my brother Joe's daughter

My sisters and I make deals. If one of us is lying comatose in the hospital, it will be the responsibility of the others to sneak into the room to shave any unwanted facial hair. We prop each other up for every mammogram, biopsy and suspicious ultrasound. Then one day, Terri calls me from the Walmart parking lot in Lincoln.

"The doctor just called!" she sobs. "I have it! I've got breast cancer!"

Now 44 and the wife and mother of six kids, Terri is diagnosed at the same age Mom was. I cannot take away her fear the way I could when she was 12. Nevertheless, my sisters and I rush to Lincoln to accompany Terri and her good husband Paul to every appointment. Doctor Janet Grange, a much respected breast cancer surgeon in Omaha, tells Terri the cancer is caught early.

"You're a perfect candidate for a lumpectomy," she assures Terri.

But quaking with fear, Terri decides to have a double mastectomy and put her fears to rest forever. I think I have never seen my little sister so brave.

McKenzie, Whitney and Jamie, my 
brother Mick's daughters

Only two weeks after Terri's surgery, my sweet sister Deb's mammogram reveals atypical hyperplasia, a pre-cancer of the breast. Once again, my sisters and I sit shoulder to shoulder in the small examination room as Dr. Grange tells us something is off in our genetic makeup.

In a heartbeat we know what we will do. Deb, Mary and I will undergo preventive double mastectomies. We're tired of living in fear, and Terri has made us brave. That year of 2010, Deb undergoes a mastectomy in November, I go next in December, and Mary follows in January. Carry, our youngest sister recently divorced, refuses to have the surgery.

"I'll be careful!" she promises.

We respect her choice. Barely in her 40's, Carry is young and attempting to date again. I understand her reluctance. But when she flips completely and opts for breast enhancement surgery rather than a mastectomy, I hit the roof.

"What is she thinking!" Too angry to speak to Carry herself, I rail at my sisters instead. "You wait! She'll get cancer underneath all that boob job and expect us to drop everything to rush to Omaha and take care of her!" I shake with fury.

"And we will," Deb says calmly. Because Deb's the nice one.

Our words are prophetic. When Carry is diagnosed with breast cancer, we immediately drive to Omaha. I am with her when our heroic Dr. Grange must gently inform Carry that her cancer is aggressive and must be treated with a double mastectomy and chemo.

Karley and Kelsey, my brother
Tom's daughters

"But it's early!" Dr. Grange comforts my sobbing baby sister. "Your breast implant pushed the tumor up to the surface and made it possible for us to catch it right away. It probably saved your life!"

So what do I know? God works in mysterious ways.

Carry is the last of us to lose her breasts. After months of chemo, she is healthy and happy and a fearless advocate for breast cancer awareness.

It's been eight years since Terri was diagnosed. We are all free of breast cancer, and the relief should be nothing short of liberating.

Except that last July, my darling little sister Deb is diagnosed with an aggressive form of endometrial cancer. Even though her cancer is caught early, Deb fears for her life and the lives of her three daughters.

"You will promise me now," she sits down with her daughters Nikki, Brandi and Sydney, "that you will find out what's going on in this family and do what you have to do to protect yourselves."

That's the rub. The next generation of daughters is coming of age, and the nagging question persists. What about our genetic makeup is determined to take down the females of our family?

Brandi, Deb's daughter and a new mother, decides to take the bull by the horns. It's time, she tells us, to be genetically tested. She and all my nieces deserve to know what they're dealing with.

Clare, Sarah and Patti, my sister Terri's daughters

That's how all of us - a large family of females - happen to be in my living room on a warm afternoon last month with another Brandi, Brandi Kay Preston. A 27-year-old dynamo who at 22 undergoes a double mastectomy herself, Brandi Kay is a genetic advocate determined to help other women at high risk, a promise she makes to her own young mother before she succumbs to breast cancer. Founder of the Hereditary Cancer Foundation based in Omaha, she travels the country urging women to advocate for themselves and to explore their genetic makeups. She very much wants to study our family. Even if our own insurance companies will not cover the cost of genetic testing, Brandi Kay promises her organization will foot the bill.

Cathy

My sisters and I are astounded at the courage of our daughters. Kelsey, my brother Tom's youngest daughter, is too young to be tested. Karley, Tom's oldest, and Nikki, Deb's oldest, are not yet ready to know. How can I blame them? For so many young women, the truth is a terrible burden. Yet, my other nieces are desperate for knowledge. They plan to be wives and mothers soon. For them the uncertainty is worse than the burden of knowing.

"Growing up," my niece Brandi confides to us, "I remember how Mom would mark all your mammogram appointments on the calendar. Then she'd pray like hell and shake in fear every time the phone rang. I knew that would be my future, too," Brandi's luminous blue eyes fill, "and I've decided there's nothing else to do but be as proactive as I can."

Deb, Mary and Terri

All by herself, Brandi has organized this gathering and persuaded almost every one of her 18 girl cousins to be tested. Now they huddle together in my living room with three women who will deliver to them the fate of our genetic makeup - genetic advocate Brandi Kay Preston, physician assistant Skyler Jesz, and the pleasant nurse who will draw our blood.

Each of us and my beautiful nieces submit to the blood test. Then we wait.

In a matter of weeks, we receive the results.

Carry

While none of us tests positive for the BRCA1 or 2 mutation, the results reveal VUS - (Variance of Uncertain Significance). In other words, scientists haven't identified every mutation for breast cancer. Three of my nieces, Deb, Carry and I are all carriers. With the single exception of my niece Emily, however, every other niece is at a moderate or high risk for breast cancer, even if they don't test positive for VUS.

The only thing we understand, geneticist Brandi Kay explains, is that almost all of us, even those who don't carry the VUS abnormality, still have a strong familial risk.

So we continue to wait for the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place. Hopefully our extensive gene pool will help to provide researchers with a few more clues. In the meantime, my courageous nieces are talking. And planning. Preventive surgery may well be in their futures, and they're mentally preparing themselves for the day they will protect themselves against breast and reproductive cancer.

But who knows? Ultimately, perhaps a cure or vaccine is just on the horizon. That's our fervent prayer. However it plays out, these gorgeous girls will figure it out, and they will never let cancer take them from their families.

Our mother, Patti Brown.
1930-1979.

Mom would be proud of them. I feel her close. She's watching out for her granddaughters. So is their great-great grandmother Luella, the girl on the wall, who had no inkling of the powerful force she would become throughout the next one hundred years in the lives of 24 women - her many daughters. Thanks to Mom and Luella, we will all live long lives.

How I wish now that I could know the girl on the wall. That I could sit close and ask about her little sons, her terrible fear of leaving them, and her eventual and helpless surrender to breast cancer.

How I wish I could hold her hand - and tell her thank you.

Jordan Engle

Jordan Engle works side by side with GICC students at a Husker Harvest Days' sandwich booth handing out chips, pouring sodas, taking orders left and right. Finally, a long time adult supervisor, impressed with his hard work, claps him on the back.

Jordan Engle

"What grade are you in, son?"

Jordan blinks. "I'm the principal," he says.

It's an easy mistake. Our new principal, like the one before him, looks like a kid. And to those of us senior citizens still teaching at GICC, he really is a kid. But we like him. We like him a lot.

Mr. Engle arrives on the scene with zest and fervor. A first year administrator fresh from Sutton where for five years he's been a math instructor, golf coach, the one-act play director, speech coach, the National Honor Society proctor, the Data team chair, and a crisis team member - yes, ALL of those - he seems the man for the job. Nevertheless, the new principal gig isn't always easy. Almost immediately, the school board votes to shut down the senior lounge - the secluded little space above the old gym - deeming it a liability issue. Mr. Engle delivers the blow to 40 shell shocked seniors.

The next week, however, he brings every senior Raising Cane's chicken to ease the disappointment. In the middle of a throng of kids, he jokes and cajoles and dispenses savory chicken fingers.

"He understands kids," says senior Jenna Lowry, "and he makes everyone feel welcome and better even when things don't always work out. He just interacts with everybody in such a positive way, and he's making this school better."

Mr. Engle is, above all else, a devout Catholic. It's what speaks to everybody at Central Catholic. He's the real thing. Father Jim Golka, pastor of St. Mary's Cathedral, is immediately impressed with Engle at his interview for the position of principal.

"It was clear to me," Father Golka says, "that his strongest asset is his Catholic identity. He lives and breathes his faith and has a deep desire to share God's love with people around him, especially young people."

Engle freely admits his Catholic faith is the result of a circuitous journey. Just before he enters kindergarten, his parents separate and divorce. He and his older brother still remember the pain of that difficult time. Only a year later, Jordan's grandfather - a beloved long time principal from the Logan, Iowa school system - will die, and a young Jordan remembers feeling suddenly adrift. It's only years later, just as he's entering middle school, that his mother remarries. His new stepfather, a farmer in the small town of Elgin, Nebraska, is a strong Catholic and convinces Jordan's mother to move her boys to Elgin and enroll them at Elgin Pope John. When he is 12-years-old, Engle and his mother and brother will all join the Church.

"Sometimes," he remembers, "I'd go to Mass by myself even when my family couldn't go." It's with his new stepfather, his newfound faith, and the Elgin Pope John community that Engle at last feels anchored.

"I know now that family is the building block of the church," he says. In his adult life, he says, he's committed to involving God in his own family. That commitment begins, however, when he's a 12-year-old navigating for the first time his Catholic faith. But in high school, the teenage years erupt, and Engle becomes somewhat of a troublemaker.

"Nothing serious," he says. "I was afraid of my mother. I'm still afraid of her."

Jordan Engle - Elgin Pope John bad boy.

Nevertheless, in high school he entertains himself by sneaking into the science closet and deliberately moving chemicals to the dismay of his confused chemistry teacher. The very next week, he arrives to class with a twelve pack of Dr. Pepper and candy flouting the teacher's absolute "no food in my classroom" policy. His pranks can hardly be classified as criminal activity, but Engle realizes now that in his own way he was finally grieving both the death of his much loved grandfather and his parents' marriage.

At Elgin Pope John School, though, in a strong community of believers, Engle is coaxed into immersing himself into TEC (Teens Encounter Christ). At a TEC retreat he meets a lovely blond girl from Humphrey St. Francis called Jenna. Jordan can't know then she will one day be his wife, but he recognizes that somehow Jenna is helping him turn back to his faith.

"I was very unhappy when I was a teenager, and I give Jenna a hundred percent credit even though she'll deny it to this day. She helped me to understand I had a hole in my heart, and the only way to fill it was that perfect fit of love for God and my neighbor."

Today, Jenna is a a third grade teacher at Gates Elementary, and the two of them are parents to vivacious Josie who, Engle jokes, is "two and a half going on 25", and year-old Carson with his sweet smile and mashed potato cheeks.

Engle family from left: Jenna, Carson, Josie, Jordan

The family is delighted to be part of the Grand Island Central Catholic and Resurrection Church communities. Jordan, as is his style, leaps in to fill every spot. At GICC's Thursday morning Mass, he sings and accompanies the choir on his guitar. When an advanced math professor drops out of the curriculum at the last second, Jordan jumps in. Besides his vast principal duties, he teaches math second period every day. He even occasionally makes breakfast for the faculty.

"I make a mean breakfast burrito," he boasts.

In a short time, Engle and his family have become part of our GICC fabric, and it seems meant to be. He admits to being awestruck at the amazing involvement of Central Catholic families.

"I can't believe how good the kids are, and our faculty buys into this place one hundred percent."

As for his own role at GICC, Jordan Engle says he hopes to excite everybody at Central Catholic about what the school can be moving forward. But mostly, he says, he hopes that all of us - staff, students and parents - can develop a spiritual connection with each other.

"One that will last a long time," he flashes a boyish grin. "Forever."

Ladies of the Club

A "progressive" book club. That's what my friend Barb Beck calls it.

"Would you be interested?" she inquires.

I blink. What does a progressive book club look like, I wonder? And how progressive can an old pro-life Catholic like me be exactly?

Left to right: Barb Beck, Sue Clement, Vikki Deuel, Lori Jeffres, Joan Black,
Christa Speed, Cathy Howard, Cyndee Shellhaas.

Progressive enough, it turns out.

Cyndee Shellhaas, the unofficial leader, hosts our very first meeting. Right off the bat, we set firm ground rules. Only the first thirty minutes should be reserved for socializing, everyone agrees politely. After all, we don't want to be one of those sorry book clubs that meets only to drink, stuff our faces, and gossip about the Kardashians.

Five years later, by God, I'm proud to say we've never once even mentioned the Kardashians. Sadly, the other rules fall by the wayside. Wine flows, Lori's lemon squares are to die for, and as for when the thirty minute rule for socializing disintegrates, none of us can say for sure.

Maybe it's when Lori makes us read The Weatherman, a scintillating and cosmopolitan murder mystery.

"I don't know that I was prepared for all the sex," Sue cocks her famous eyebrow.

"You're welcome," Lori never bats an eye.

Or maybe it's when we cry our way through All the Light We Cannot See, a World War II account that somehow causes us to reminisce about our grade school days in the 50's and 60's when we obediently hide under our desks during the Duck and Cover drill. Vikki, who grows up in Ralston right next to Omaha SAC, a prime target, remembers her mother's strict directions in the event of a nuclear attack.

"Find your little brother in school and walk to your grandparents' house in Grand Island," she instructs the horrified ten-year-old. "But be sure to call when you get to Chapman so they know you're coming."

Because you wouldn't want to be rude and arrive unannounced.

In the beginning, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to hang around these enormously intelligent women. Most of us are educators: Vikki Deuel is the retired long time principal of Walnut Middle School and one of the finest administrators I've ever known. Joan Black, Cyndee Shellhaas and Christa Speed are extremely gifted retired teachers in the Grand Island Public School system. Gayle Bradley, before she retires, works with at-risk kids at Grand Island Senior High. Sue Clement is our resident historian and astounds us with her knowledge. Not only was she a long time organist and choir director at her church, but she also taught kids history at the Stuhr Museum in the facility's historic buildings. Barb Beck, like me, is still working. She's a community college instructor in early childhood education and still the brightest, funniest girl I've ever known. And Lori Jeffres, the only one of us young enough to still have estrogen coursing through her veins, keeps the service techs in line at Jerry's Sheet Metal.

                                                                                                  "OMG - what if the pies don't get baked, the turkey doesn't get roasted and the cranberry relish isn't finished because this book keeps calling my name?!?"  (a Book Club Facebook post by Vikki Deuel right before Thanksgiving)

These girls are beautiful, passionate, crazy fun, and, like me, suckers for a good book. We've devoured the works of Charles Dickens, Tony Hillerman, Pat Conroy, and Margaret Atwood to name a few. Every selection is as diverse as the women in our club. and even Sue, who hates any kind of gore, dutifully plows her way through Stephen King. Somehow, as we share our own perspectives of great literature, my friends and I are sharing our own lives as well. It's because of Book Club that I know Gayle chases away a potential kidnapper when she's a tiny girl.

"Do you know my mother lives right there!" she wags a finger in the face of the man who tries to coax her into his car. Overwhelmed by the spunky little girl who relentlessly scolds him, the man throws up his hands and skids away.

Because of Book Club, I know that Barb, one day in the community college class she teaches, is slapped in the face by a small girl who's recently moved into foster care and been forced to wear clothes that are not her own.

"You needed to be mad at somebody today," my compassionate friend soothes the traumatized little girl.

I know that Cyndee's mother was orphaned, that Christa tenderly nurses her dying mother at the same time she plans her daughter's wedding, and that Sue does such a profound impersonation of Grand Island's historical Edith Abbott that I choke back a lump in my throat.

The ravages of Book Club.

We don't appreciate the real bonds of friendship, however, until election year, 2016. Abruptly, Book Club takes on a new dimension. To the last member, we're petrified of candidate Donald Trump. It's all we talk about.

"He'll never get elected," I try to sound confident.

But Sue has an ominous feeling. 

On election night, each of us in our own homes, we stare at our television sets in horror.
I can't stand it any more and pull out my phone to message the book club.

"C'mon, Florida!" I plead.

But as the map bleeds red, Christa messages one fatal line: "We're screwed."

Just like that, Book Club becomes vitally important. In a country divided, we all become aware that family members, work colleagues and old friends are drawing lines in the sand. Conversations become stilted. After silly arguments with people I love most in the world, I learn to keep my mouth shut. 

During a pleasant lunch gathering, a friend of mine shakes her head bemoaning the "free houses"  Habitat for Humanity gives away. Not so long ago, I would have confronted her. It's pointless now, I realize. Even so, I feel like a traitor - to the Ortega triplets - three exceptional graduates whose parents work relentlessly to earn a down payment for their own Habitat house and after many years march into the bank to triumphantly make the final mortgage payment. I think of Bev Yax, whose smile lights up my American Literature class, and the day she tells her classmates she'd give her life for the Dreamer's Act. Or Youhanna Ghaifan, also a successful graduate of our school, whose parents flee from warring Sudan to give their children a better life in America.

Thank God for Book Club. Other than my own home with my own husband, it's the only other safe place in which I rant and rage and vent. "We're not radical people!" I look around at each dear face in the room. "We're just reasonable human beings!"

Cyndee Shellhaas, far right, with her family at the Lincoln
Women's March, spring 2017.

Cyndee places a hand on my arm. "Don't you see?" she says in her gentle, wise way. "Everybody in the country feels they're only being reasonable."

She's right, of course. I suspect, honestly, that most of us in the United States fall in the middle during these turbulent times. Practically everybody I know, regardless of personal politics, is horrified by the border separation of children and parents. Most of us condemn racism, defend those of us who are disabled, and love without condition our gay sons and daughters. Yet even in our community, in every community, an explosive few feel empowered and emboldened by the President's new, pervasive atmosphere. And they scare me.

They don't scare my Book Club friends, though. Cyndee Shellhaas gathers her entire family in Lincoln to protest at the Women's March. She and Vikki Deuel commit their time and energy to the Literacy Council teaching, encouraging and befriending refugees who bravely try to make a new start in this country. Barb Beck and her lovely husband Dave earnestly teach one of Cyndee's students, Abshir Awalie, to drive and obtain a license as he studies for his community college degree. 

Barb and Dave Beck, middle and right, preparing to teach
Abshir Awalie to drive.

Later, Abshir will tell his mentor Cyndee, "My life is so good."

So is mine. I'm lucky to have these friends. They came to me late in life. But in their 50's, 60's and 70's, my book club cronies are teaching me it's never too late to make a difference. 

Every fourth Monday evening of the month is an event. Lori makes us laugh til we cry, Sue offers astonishing perspective on every event in history, Joan's passion is contagious, and Christa is serenely resilient. The books we read, and not always books we'd ever choose to read, enrich and inspire us nevertheless. They persuade us to see the world and its inhabitants in a different way and to examine our own lives in the process.

These last five years, my friends and I have discovered that good friendships can spring forth from the unlikeliest of places, that experience really is the best teacher, that even when knees, hips and memories deteriorate, we still have a lot to offer.

And that there's nothing better in the whole world than sharing a good book with remarkable friends.

Pat Kayl

Mr. Kayl swears like a sailor.

He drinks beer with numerous buddies, hisses, throws erasers at students, and sometimes - absorbed in his own consuming thoughts - grunts at me in the GICC hallway as if I am nothing but a pesky housefly. Usually I let this pass. After all, I've known Pat Kayl nearly all my life and am accustomed to the way he turns off the world to focus solely on the dilemma of the leak in the ceiling of the old gym. Or the leak in the cafeteria. Or the leak in the second floor art room.

Pat and Julie, November 2017

Just one time do I let him have it.

"Hey!" I snap. "Is it too much trouble to look me in the eye and be nice for once?"

Immediately he stops. I see the bewilderment and the way his eyes finally focus and adapt to his present surroundings.

"I'm so sorry," he apologizes, horrified by his behavior. "Don't know how in the world I didn't see you."

Of course he doesn't. Pat Kayl is our absent-minded professor. If he stares off into space during the middle of a chemistry lecture, you wait patiently for him to return - he always does. If he loops his right arm over the top of his head to mindlessly scratch his left ear, it means he's misplaced either his coffee cup or a sophomore boy with glasses.

And it's a complete myth that Mr. Kayl ever wears a pocket protector. Why else would his shirt, threadbare and half tucked, be stained with ink, avocado dip and sodium thiosulfate?

I meet Mr. Kayl for the first time at Central Catholic High School when I am a nervous 16-year-old. My family has just moved from Denver to Grand Island, Nebraska - a strange, foreign place my siblings and I have never even heard of. That first day of school on a warm September morning, petrified and homesick for Denver, I am introduced to Mr. Kayl and learn that he will be my advisor. In spite of my misery, I nearly snort. This shy, skinny man-boy masquerading as a science teacher is my moral authority?

Mr. Kayl, 1972

On that inauspicious day, I am not to know that Pat and his elfin wife Julie, a GICC English teacher, will be not only my mentors but my best friends for the next 46 years. In fact, I only feel a little sorry for Mr. Kayl. Father Hoelck one day has to rescue him from the ornery senior boys who manhandle and drag him into the boys' bathroom to give him a dousing bath. Mr. Kayl only laughs. He loves his students, and they love him. Those ornery boys will bear hug Pat at their 30 and 40 year reunions, and kids like Don Leifeld and Dick Smith will become his devoted and life long friends.

When I return to GICC after college to teach in 1977, Pat and Julie take me under their wing and show me the ropes. Their beautiful boy Eric is 8-years-old, and Julie is weeks away from delivering John. A few years later their only daughter Andrea - an enchanting, dark-haired infant with big dark eyes like her brothers - is born.

When I meet and marry John Howard, the school's new social studies teacher, Pat is in our wedding, and he and Julie - along with our other dearest friends Hugh and Fran Brandon - become our son Kenny's godparents. We rely on Pat for so much.

At Grand Island Central Catholic, he's the go-to guy for anything and everything. Often he disappears from class after a frantic call from the office.

"Mr. Kayl!" Sister Mary Leo, shrieks through the P.A. system. "The furnace just gave out!"

Whatever the problem, Pat's the man to fix it. And it's not just our broken down old heating system or the falling tiles in the gym or the sagging roof over the lobby. All of us call on Pat for help. Every Husker Harvest Days, he's in his element erecting buildings for our school food stands. For years he's the prom sponsor and helps construct mini-bridges or promenades transforming the old gym into a magical wonderland. He's the only guy who knows how to operate the ancient sound system during school musicals and graduations and spring concerts.

As well, John and I and all his friends rely on his help. One summer he repairs the wood floors in our dining room. Tommy, our nine-year-old son, sits cross-legged with his chin in fists fascinated by Pat's careful and precise alignments of every floor board.

"Man," Tommy tells us later. "Mr. Kayl knows ten different ways to say SH__T," he shakes his head in wonder.

Pat's classroom is a disaster - a hoarder's paradise. Twenty-year-old television sets are herded together on the counters for curious Electricity Class students to tear into and explore. In need of repair, large board games for Karnival Kapers, our school's big fundraiser, lie haphazardly all over the floor. Only the chemicals are stored carefully away - otherwise every item from every garage sale and science fair litters Mr. Kayl's room. First time visitors are visibly shocked when they enter the science room, and Pat sheepishly scratches his head.

"Gotta clean this damn room," he apologizes. "Maybe this summer."

Julie is every bit the hoarder also, but miraculously she and Pat know where everything is - both in their classrooms and at home - which is filled to the brim with every antique collectible you could think of.

In spite of the limited space in their stuffed-to-the-gills home, there's no place John and I and our friends would rather be than hanging out at the Kayls. One night at dinner, our good friend and principal Hugh Brandon steals little Andrea Kayl's pillow in its pristine Strawberry Shortcake pillowcase to lounge on the Kayls' living room floor. Seven-year-old Andrea is astonished to walk into the middle of her living room to see Hugh's big head squashing and mangling her beloved pillow.

"Dad!" she chastises Pat. "I told you NEVER to let Mr. Brandon use my Strawberry Shortcake pillow!" Then she bursts into tears, sprints out the front door, and hides under the old camper in the Kayls' driveway to cry her heart out.

Pat crawls on hands and knees under the low camper to apologize and gently soothe his enraged little daughter. It's the same voice he uses to soothe troubled parents, students and fellow teachers. Finally, Andrea comes back to the house to snatch her pillow from our big penitent school principal and return it to its proper place. Order is restored.

I don't know a happier family than the Kayls - until  the tragic loss of their 25-year-old son Eric in November, 1994.  Julie calls to tell me, and I can barely absorb the news. John and I immediately rush to their house, and I sit close to Julie on the couch gripping her hand. We stare at each other in wordless shock while John grabs Pat in an awkward hug. Then Pat shoves his hands into his pockets and cannot look up again from the floor.

I am afraid Pat and Julie will never come back to us. After many years, Julie makes peace with the death of her precious Eric, but Pat never does. It's the one broken piece of his life Mr. Kayl can't fix.

He and Julie continue to teach through the decades, and John and Andrea grow up to be  fine, exceptional people. Andrea, in spite of a visual impairment like her mother's, becomes a college professor in Las Vegas, and John joins the military, marries his lovely Darcy, and gives Pat and Julie three grandchildren. More than anything, Pat's kids and grandkids offer him comfort.

Pat and Julie's grandchildren: Ava, Balen and Edwin.

In 2011 when Pat and Julie decide to retire, I can hardly take it in.

"I suppose I'll never see you again," I whine to Julie. Life at Grand Island Central Catholic without Pat and Julie Kayl seems unthinkable. I am a little inconsolable.

"No, never," she shoots back. "Our friendship is now completed. Good luck and godspeed," she jokes.

They enjoy retirement, but Pat is always back at school to help with Karnival Kapers, Husker Harvest Days and the never ending quirks of the sound system.

I can almost imagine, even though a new science teacher inhabits the spaces of his old classroom, that Pat is still here. To see him roaming the hallways is familiar and safe and comforting.

Last year, however, he loses weight and begins to feel weary. Not long after he's diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Julie is upbeat and positive - she always is - and can make us believe Pat will be fine. Their good friends and neighbors Les and Dee Lucht drive them to doctor appointments and take care of their yard. Julie assures us Pat will soon be driving and mowing his own lawn.

"All is well!" she chimes.

Except it's not.

A few weeks ago, Pat catches pneumonia. It's only a slight case, Julie says, but Pat's fragile body cannot fight it. In a matter of days he's unresponsive and attached to a ventilator. His good children, John and Andrea, arrive immediately and sit with Julie who sleeps on the little couch near Pat's hospital bed every night. They are with him when the ventilator is removed. Pat takes three breaths and leaves forever this world and all of us.

We receive word of Pat's death at school, and after the day is over I make my way down to Mr. Kayl's old room. Standing in the doorway, I smell and take in the empty classroom. Even though it's inhabited by another teacher now and so clean I can barely stand it, it's still and always will be Mr. Kayl's classroom. I can see him in front of his chalk board scribbling undecipherable words from edge to edge before he scratches his head and loses himself looking out the window at other unseen worlds.

Pat Kayl, 1946 - 2017

Pat Kayl is our saint - not a saint in the usual sense, like the ones who have visions and hear God's voice instructing them to build Cathedrals. Instead he is our flawed, beer-drinking, cigarette smoking, muttering, grumpy, much loved old saint. Mr. Kayl is the kind of saint who drops everything to help you out of a jam, makes every student feel like his own kid, and who would offer any one of us the threadbare, stained, untucked shirt off his back.

Goobye for now, Old Man. Don't forget us.

And keep your damn room clean.

Uncle Carl

Sometimes Uncle Carl drives us crazy. Like the time he comes all the way from Pittsburgh and persuades us to stage a mini opera.

Uncle Carl makes balloon animals for his great nieces.

My little brothers are not remotely interested in opera. I am ten-years-old, however, and dying to play the part of the long suffering Mimi who dies in her lover's arms. That my lover Rudolfo is also my little brother Joe slightly diminishes the thrill, but I’m willing to overlook it for the role of a lifetime.

Uncle Carl rehearses with us in the basement barely concealing his irritation at my brothers’ less than adequate performances. Suddenly his eye is caught by a large stain on the ancient Persian carpet. It’s the very carpet that Uncle Carl himself made as a gift to Mom and Dad.

“My God,” he moans and places a hand over his heart. Uncle Carl is often dramatic like this.  “What's that?” he points to the offending stain.

Our four-year-old sister Debbie, lounging on the battered old basement sofa, follows his gaze. “That’s where Duchess had puppies,” she offers agreeably before jamming her two favorite fingers back in her mouth.

Uncle Carl is livid, and the opera is forgotten before it even begins. My brothers are delighted, but I’m fairly crushed not to inhabit the character of the doomed Mimi.

A lifelong bachelor, Uncle Carl takes care of our Grandmother Brown in Pennsylvania but commits to visiting us regularly - mainly, we suspect, because he regards us as uncivilized hoydens. Uncle Carl makes it his mission to refine us.

“Happy hour!” he sings out at three o'clock on summer afternoons, and we tumble from our rooms or from outdoors to indulge in a fizzy soft drink served on a tray with sweet cookies arranged artfully on the side. Everything is a gala event when Uncle Carl arrives. Tall and cosmopolitan with an elegant eastern accent, he introduces us to a world of crystal goblets, napkin rings and linen table cloths. Before bed, we line up at the bottom of the staircase for “Penny, Penny, Who’s Got the Penny?” Whenever we correctly guess which of Uncle Carl’s fists conceals the penny, we progress up the stairs until one of us reaches the top and is jubilantly declared the winner. He makes balloon animals, has all the time in the world for a game of Monopoly, and marches us around the block like tin soldiers.

We adore Uncle Carl.

If we don't always appreciate his determination to refine us, we do look forward to the big Christmas box he sends without fail every year. Filled with individually wrapped gifts for each of us, it's always the last box we open at Christmas time. The Hamers, our only cousins and a family of seven boys residing on the other side of the country, receive an equally large box. All year long, Uncle Carl combs thrift stores, white elephants and yard sales collecting presents and mementos that eventually will be wrapped and stuffed in our Christmas box. In addition, every member of our large extended family - aunts and uncles and second cousins - receives birthday, anniversary and Valentine cards. Uncle Carl forgets no one. Even as we grow older, marry and produce children and grandchildren of our own, Uncle Carl is meticulous about recording names and births for inclusion in the Christmas box.

"I'm still waiting for those names," he calls to scold me one day shortly before Thanksgiving. During one productive year, several of my nieces and nephews have become parents, and I've forgotten my promise to record the names of Uncle Carl's newest great, great nieces and nephews. Uncle Carl's reminded me on three different occasions, and rather than face his wrath, I make up fictitious names for three new babies.

"Why does Uncle Carl think our grandchildren are called Miranda and Kevin?" my brother Rick stares at me accusingly the following Christmas Eve. I've forgotten all about the made up names. Rick laughs out loud at my discomfiture. "You don't even know the names of my grandchildren," he shakes his head.

"Don't tell Uncle Carl," I sigh.

The truth is, Uncle Carl tends to be just a tiny bit controlling. When my sisters and I get married, he kindly offers to make floral arrangements. We don't realize the hefty price to be paid for this generous offer. Uncle Carl not only takes charge of the flowers but everything else besides. Before Deb's wedding, he orders all of us out to the river to collect green foliage for the altar at St. Mary's Cathedral. We have no idea what we're picking. If it's green, we stuff it into giant garbage bags and obediently haul it to the church. Uncle Carl completely ignores the elderly pastor who tells him that under no circumstances are wedding decorations permitted on the altar and, behind the old priest's back, creates a magnificent arch of greenery precisely around the forbidden area. Father is furious when he discovers the arrangement too late and nearly speechless when, during the ceremony, he spies marijuana leaves skillfully woven through the arrangement.

In spite of his high handedness, we never doubt Uncle Carl's devotion to us. He flies from Pennsylvania in a thunderstorm to be with us for our mother's funeral, and twenty years later he rushes to our sides for Dad's. He even comes from Pennsylvania one year for Rick's high school graduation and my college graduation. In all the craziness, our baby brother Jeff, who's just completed kindergarten, is nearly forgotten by everybody except Uncle Carl.

"Da, da da da, DA DA!" Uncle Carl sings out the notes to "Pomp and Circumstance" as Jeff, with grave dignity, marches through the back yard. Uncle Carl throws a party right there, and we all congratulate Jeff on his remarkable achievement.

This coming March, Uncle Carl will turn 90. He's begged us time and time again to visit him in Pittsburgh, and at last I promise him we will come for his 90th. But a few weeks ago, on a warm October afternoon, Aunt Patty calls me from her home in Virginia with sad news. Uncle Carl has died.

"A stroke," she says hoarsely. I catch the controlled emotion in her voice. My 87-year-old aunt, Dad and Uncle Carl's younger sister, is the last remaining sibling. I'm glad Uncle Steve and her strong sons are nearby.

Our stepmother Kris Nolan Brown with Aunt Patty Hamer.

We've not all been to Pittsburgh together since a long ago visit in 1968. At the time I am 13, and Tom and Jeff aren't even born. Mom and Dad board all eight of us on a TWA jet bound for Pittsburgh, our first airplane trip ever. Grouped together in the rear, we enthusiastically explore air vents and overhead lights as Mom, with our baby sister Caroline on her lap, threatens that if we don't settle down, she will "turn this plane around and head right back home". Upon our arrival in Pittsburgh, we squash into two taxi cabs and careen under the hills through the Fort Pitt Tunnel before bursting forth from darkness. Just like that Pittsburgh rises before us - a city of steel, lights, and skyscrapers glowing in the night sky. The great Allegheny River meets the Monongahela to form the majestic Ohio River, and one day soon Uncle Carl will disperse pennies among us to toss into the waters where the rivers meet as one.

The Hamers. From left: Ken, Brian, Uncle Steve, Aunt
Patty, Pete and Tim.

Mom and Dad are long gone, but here we are, nearly 40 years later, careening through the same Fort Pitt Tunnel. Abruptly, the skyline appears to conquer the black night with its light studded brilliance, and Uncle Carl feels very near. Our loyal stepmother Kris accompanies us along with our young stepbrother Nolan and his sweet wife Brianne.

Mark, Uncle Carl's roommate for the last four decades and the most important person in his world, meets us at the door of the funeral home. He's a lovely man who composedly greets us and all Uncle Carl's friends. At last we find our adored Aunt Patty and Uncle Steve. Tim, Peter and Kenny, our kind, handsome cousins, are there, too. Brian will arrive tomorrow, but our cousins Stephen and Kevin, like our own siblings Terri, Carry and Jeff, are unable to attend. We long for the missing members of our family - living and dead. Paul Solomon, however, Dad's cousin who always makes us laugh, is thankfully here.

In front of Uncle Carl's Pittsburgh apartment. Bottom row from left: Nolan and
Brianne Clare, Brian Hamer. Second row from left: Paul Solomon, Mary Brand,
Joe Brown. Top row from left: Ken Hamer, Pete Hamer, Tom Brown, Deb
Durning, Rick Brown, Cathy Howard and Mick Brown.

When at last we've caught up with each other's news and all the guests have departed, we stand together to gaze upon the body of our brother and uncle. Aunt Patty, in her wheel chair, sits silently, her great blue eyes brilliant with emotion. Uncle Carl's face is unlined and almost youthful. Only recently has his dark hair finally turned gray. He seems remarkably the same, and I can hardly believe we will never again hear his elegant voice.

Three o'clock happy hours, "Penny Penny, Who's Got the Penny", and Christmas boxes now become cherished childhood memories, and with the passing of Uncle Carl comes the passing of an era. My cousins and siblings and I feel it keenly. For all our lives, Uncle Carl's filled our unremarkable days with light and brilliance and sometimes high drama.

He is like his beloved Pittsburgh - the explosion of light at the end of the tunnel. In an instant, the world glows bright with promise. There are presents to open, operas to perform, plans to be made.

And for a little while, anything is possible.

Kenny and Vannie's Wedding

I pray for Kenny and Tommy to marry nice girls. They're only toddlers, but I figure you can't start too early.

Kenny and Savanna

Kenny is a freshman at Denver University when he falls in love the first time. He brings home a girl too shy to speak to us directly.

"Would you like sour cream with your enchiladas?" my husband John politely asks at dinner. She is horrified to be put on the spot in such a blatant manner. Finally she whispers her preference to Kenny.

Slightly embarrassed, Kenny responds. "She doesn't like sour cream, Dad."

The next day I start a 58 day Novena prayer. It's what Desperate Catholic Mothers do. I plead with God.  "Get rid of her,"  

By day 23 she's history. But I finish the Novena anyway. I like to cover all my bases. It is the last time I pray for a girl to go away. I'm not entirely comfortable ordering God around like a mafia hit man.

Two years ago, Kenny brings home Savanna. "Vannie", he calls her. She has purple hair, majors in English, is a sometime vegetarian, and waits tables to put herself through school. My big, gruff husband doesn't scare her in the least.

"You're a vegetarian?" John says in mock horror. "I killed a buffalo for you!"

She cocks an eyebrow. "I didn't say I was a good vegetarian."

I like this girl. I like her a lot. Kenny does, too. In fact, it's as plain as the nose on his face that he adores her. Laughing, they tell us how they meet each for the first time through an online dating site. Kenny has posted a ridiculous photo of himself. He has decided, he explains, to be completely honest. Vannie, when she sees the photo, makes a quick decision.

Kenny's online dating photo

"I figure either he's a complete freak," she tells us, "or that he's the perfect guy for me."

She's the perfect girl for him, too. Vannie falls in love not only with Kenny but with his big dog Sarge. Vannie, in fact, is passionate about all animals. She interns for a pet shelter and bonds with mysterious breeds of animals that I am afraid to look at let alone touch. An iguana lovingly wraps itself around her head. She builds by hand a doggie wheelchair for a pup with paralyzed hind quarters. One day she adopts a sweet shelter dog called Luna who, along with Kenny's Sarge, completes their crazy quartet.

Never in my life have I met a girl like Vannie. She is an inveterate reader.  I remember the day she texts me a picture of the book she loves most - a well worn, dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre. I gasp. Jane Eyre is my all time favorite book. I am not acquainted with one other person who loves it like I do. In that moment, I know she will marry my son.

"Because of Jane Eyre?" my husband snorts. Laugh all you want, I think knowingly. She's the one.

Vannie and Iguana friend

And she is. Last Friday, on a warm day in June, Kenny and Vannie tie the knot under a cloudless blue sky in Colorado's Denver City Park. The place is full of poignant memories for my siblings and me. We grew up in this park paddle boating on the big lake with our Starbuck cousins on the Fourth of July. Dad hurled my brothers and me in our saucer sleds down the big hill in front of the Museum of Natural History. City Park was home to us 45 years ago, and I wish with all my heart that Mom and Dad were here for this great day.

But John's 92-year-old mother is still with us, and surrounded by her children and grandchildren before the ceremony, Ruth Howard chokes back tears. I do not become emotional until I see my own siblings marching up the rise toward us like a small army. My sister-in-law Sheryl leads the charge. Wave after wave of brothers and sisters and spouses and children and our stepmother Kris come all the way from our small town in Nebraska to celebrate with Kenny and Vannie.

It is a wonderful day, pure and simple. Vannie is a vision in her dress. She wears no veil. Her hair hangs loosely around her radiant face, and peeping below her dress,as she marches down the aisle, are blue denim shoes. I smile. My beautiful daughter-in-law is uniquely and proudly herself.

Later, we crowd into the boat pavillion for eating and dancing. Vannie's gorgeous mother Ronda and her talented friends have transformed the ancient boathouse. With warm Texan hospitality, Ronda charms our huge family and guests while her affable husband Rob takes care of things behind the scenes. Vannie's handsome father Bobby offers a loving toast to the bride and groom. Our younger son Tommy, as his brother's best man, offers his own toast. He recalls the day long ago that he snatches the last Little Debbie from our cupboard and flaunts it in front of Kenny who immediately smashes it so that neither one of them will enjoy it.

"When you crushed that Zebra cake, Kenny," Tommy laments, "you crushed a little part of me."

My evil sister-in-law Mary Turner nudges me. "So you're the kind of mother who let her kids eat Little Debbies?" she mocks me. She loves it that I have no homemaking skills

"I couldn't bake that day," I pretend to be indignant. "I was behind with my scrapbooking." We laugh raucously.

Vannie's sister Ashley, the maid of honor, offers a toast with sisterly words of love and tenderly kisses Vannie. Then we dance. Vannie's mother has secretly arranged a flash mob dance inviting all of us to participate. She leads the crowd assisted by Vannie's father and beautiful stepmother Sherri. I am not a dancer, though, and think I will bow out. My sisters, however, will not allow me to retreat.

"Loosen up!" my younger sister Mary scolds.

She is absolutely right. How many times does your oldest son get married? We dance and laugh and sing. Kenny hikes his pants up to his chest and struts his moves like Pee Wee Herman. Even on his wedding day, my 6 ft. 10 son cannot find a suit with sleeves long enough to reach his wrists. My sister Terri, beaming like a teenager, bounces out on the floor to match Kenny's outlandish dance moves, and I think I have never laughed so hard.

Suddenly the DJ is playing We Are Family. We sing along in thundering unison. It is absolutely the cheesiest moment ever, but it occurs to me that in this hot little pavillion, I am surrounded by almost all the people in the world I love most. My dad's cousins, Peggy and MaryLee, whose voices I have known all my life, are here with their families. Past and present generations of Browns, Howards, Hansons,Turners, Tighes and Ryans mingle together. A new generation will begin with this eventful night. It is a moment divine. Perhaps the highlight of the evening, however, is Vannie's delightful grandfather,"PaPa", who strums his beloved guitar and sings for the newlyweds.

"I only like two kinds of music," PaPa's eyes twinkle. "Country and western!"

Finally, I slip outside for a breath of cool air. Ashley, Vannie's sister, is also there, snatching a moment of quiet.

"I was so nervous about my toast," she confides all at once. "There was so much I wanted to say."

She tells me about "Sibling Night", a weekly event which she and Vannie and their younger brother Ben hold dear. They cook and talk and spend time together.

"Then Vannie brought Kenny, and when Tommy moved to Denver, he came, too," Ashley explains breathlessly. "And now Kenny and Tommy have become like my own brothers. And that," she finishes at a gallop, "is what I really wanted to say in my toast."

Vannie and Kenny - June 17th, 2016

Suddenly, I like this lovely, regal girl very much. Wordless, I grip her arm. Ashley cannot realize how happy she has made me. Kenny and Tommy are on their own living 400 miles away from us. In a flash, however, I know if anything should happen to my sweet boys, they will be among family. I try to thank Ashley but realize I will only sound like an over-emotional mother. One day I will try to tell her what a great gift her words were to me on the day of my son's wedding.

On June 17th, 2016, Kenny and Vannie's wedding night, the moon is full. I take a moment to stand by myself and savor the cool night air and the City Park lake shining in the moonlight. Mom and Dad feel very near. I hope they know about Kenny and Vannie - about their tender hearts and their quirky humor. I hope they know that a beautiful girl has captured their grandson's heart - a girl who loves helpless animals, blue denim shoes, and Jane Eyre.

And a sweet, lovely, very tall boy whose sleeves are never long enough - not even on his wedding day.

Carry Short

Even when she's five, my sister Carry is a drama queen. Nobody can turn a skinned knee into a near death experience quite like our baby sister.

"My knee! Oh my God, my knee! Oh my God, Oh my God!"

We are forbidden to use the Lord's name in vain. Ever. But Carry's entire vocabulary is built upon her histrionic invocations to God.

Carry (front) with our siblings Mary, Rick, Terri, Tom and Jeff

She is a little like the Boy Who Cries Wolf, and we tend to ignore her outbursts. One afternoon, however, when we are all lounging in the tv room, we hear her shrieks from the kitchen. Her OhMyGod's seem even more desperate than usual.

My mother rolls her eyes. "Somebody better check on our little Sarah Bernhardt," she says to no one in particular.

It's probably good that we do. Nimble as a monkey, Carry has maneuvered herself up the kitchen cabinets to secure the peanut butter from the top shelf. Losing her tenuous grip, she tumbles but is saved when her underwear fortunately hooks to the knob of the silverware drawer. Suspended in mid air, she flails furiously.

"My God, my God!" she hisses when we laugh helplessly but make no move to disengage her. "Why don't you help me!"

In spite of her passionate dramatics, we adore Carry. She is the eighth child of the ten of us. I am the oldest and nearly 13 when she is born, and the second she comes home from the hospital I am utterly captivated by my baby sister. Like Mom, she is a dark-eyed beauty. Small and lithe, she darts around the house and through the yard like a long legged nymph. She is not tall like the rest of us. Rather, she is so small that she burrows next to our giant of a father in his huge recliner and all but disappears under his big arm.

When Carry is 8, Mom is diagnosed with breast cancer. We are a family in denial and refuse to believe she will be taken from us. Her death knocks us off our feet. In a bewildering cloud of grief, we understand our lives will never be the same. But our small siblings are especially vulnerable.

Dad is our savior. In spite of his own terrible pain, he makes the ten of us feel safe, and we try to embrace the new normal. Dad rouses us all for school in the mornings when the alarm blares. As soon as he closes the door in the bathroom to shower, Carry crawls into Dad's big bed, the bed he shared with Mom. She yanks the covers around her and listens to the sounds of Dad gargling and showering. Paul Harvey spouts his morning perspective from the bathroom radio. It is the only time she feels safe.

My siblings and I become especially close after Mom dies, and we are especially protective of Dad and each other. Carry and I, in fact, become like mother and daughter.

She grows into a beautiful young woman, and I am proud of her. Immediately after high school, all by herself, she bravely moves to Denver to become a nanny. There she meets Craig Short, and by the time she is in her middle twenties, Carry seems to have everything she has ever craved - a husband, a family, and a beautiful home.

Her children - Morgan, Jonathan and Joseph - are her life. Carry romps on the floor and plays with them,and I think I have never seen a mother who enjoys her children so much. We are delighted when they all move back from Colorado to Omaha.

Carry with kids Jonathan, Joseph and Morgan

But the marriage does not survive. Carry is a stay-at-home mom with no college education. After her divorce, she is paralyzed with fear. Nevertheless, she forces herself to march into an Omaha car dealership to ask for a job. She gets it, too. Not only that, she becomes one of the top sales people at Baxter Hyundai. She is still a drama queen, to be sure. But the girl's got guts.

Life careens along. Until 2010 when our little sister Terri is diagnosed with breast cancer. Scared to death, she elects to have a double mastectomy. Before we can even catch our breath, however, my sister Deb is diagnosed with hyperplasia, a pre-cancerous breast condition. The jig is up, and we know it. Breast cancer killed Mom and her grandmother, and now it's gunning for all of us. Deb, Mary and I, like our sister Terri, decide with great trepidation to undergo preventive double mastectomies. But Carry digs in her heels.

"I am not having a double mastectomy," she snaps at Mary who pleads with her to consider the surgery. I can hardly blame her. She is a 42-year-old single mother. In her eyes, preventive surgery means the end of her life. I cannot tell her it isn't so. In any case, she is determined that the family gene will never claim her as its next victim.

But it does. Six weeks ago, she discovers a small lump, and by the end of  the month, she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Carry is 48-years-old. Mom was 48 when she died. There was a time when none of my sisters or I  believed we'd ever live past our 48th year. We convince Carry that she's lucky. She's found this cancer early, and Dr. Janet Grange, our own surgeon, will probably perform a simple lumpectomy.

Carry with daughter Morgan

But it's not that easy. A few days later, as Carry and I sit side by side in  a tense examination room, Dr. Grange explains that Carry's tumor is aggressive. It must be treated immediately with chemotherapy before surgery is even considered.

Carry groans, drops her head and wails. Dr. Grange and I try to comfort her, but Carry, when she raises her head, is angry. "So it's already gone to my organs! AND I'm losing my hair?" she lashes out at Dr. Grange.

I attempt to intervene, but Dr. Grange waves her hand at me. "No," she cautions. "She's just received terrible news. Let her deal with it."

Carry pulls herself together, but she barely listens as Dr. Grange explains that chemo will kill any errant cells. "This is a treatable, winnable cancer," she tells us. Later, though, in the elevator, Carry sobs. She is my heartbroken baby sister, and we cling to each other for dear life.

It is not fair that my two little sisters have been stricken by this terrible disease. Terri and I are in the car after visiting Carry one day. Suddenly, I feel overwhelmed by the family affliction. When will we be done with it? I have 18 gorgeous nieces. Must they all live in fear of cancer? Are we a family of women destined to lose our breasts?

"Terri," I sigh, "do you ever wish sometimes we could just all go to Heaven and leave this business behind?"

But Terri's having none of that. My little sister is a cancer survivor. She's fought too hard to wish her life away. "It'll be okay," she says soothingly.

Immediately, I am comforted. Terri is the sister who made all the rest of us brave. She will make Carry brave, too. And she has. My brother Joe, a cancer survivor himself, texts us. "Everything will be all right." My brother Rick sends us a special prayer to say. We band together, like we always do, and I am supremely grateful for my good brothers and sisters. It is one more hurtle we will conquer together.

Only a few days after the terrible morning in Dr. Grange's office, Carry makes an appointment to be fitted for a wig. Yesterday, Dr. Grange inserts a port in her arm, and next Wednesday, she will begin her first chemo treatment. Her close friends will invade her house this Saturday, and they will shave Carry's head.

"I'm not waiting for my hair to fall out," she says briskly. She has also decided, after her chemo, to have a double mastectomy. In the meantime, she is taking caring of her children and selling cars. She is that little girl who climbs the kitchen shelves determined to get the peanut butter - all by herself.

But she doesn't have to do this by herself. Surrounded by her kids and good friends and family, Carry will plow her way to the other side. Because that's what she's done all her life.

She's a drama queen, my baby sister. But she's a tough cookie.

And we'll be with her all the way.