If you are given only one sister, and she’s like Annette, how blessed you are. She was one of the kindest and most giving people one could be. Always there, always listening, always helping. She was her mother’s daughter. If there was a problem with being the only girl in the family, it almost always had to do with the one bathroom and the demand for it. Somehow, we made it work, but it was not easy.
She married Jim, a friend of Pete’s, and had two girls. The younger one (Lindy) needed to be in a dryer and warmer climate, so Annette and Jim decided to move to L.A. Since I was a student at UCLA, I moved in with Annette and her family. Anette’s marriage was never idyllic, and I became a third parent to the girls. We sang and told stories, and I took them to UCLA every so often. In summer, they came to Purple Sage. We were close.
After the war, everyone but Joe and his family moved to Los Angeles. Annette and Jim went to Palm Springs often and eventually decided to move there. Lenette and I lived in Las Vegas and were making some meaningful money, so we invested in a Condo Annette and Jim could live in. They loved Palm Springs, and we visited and stayed with them.
Sometime after Pa died, we visited Annette and Jim in Palm Springs. Annette immediately came to me and told me that she had suffered profound sadness since Pa’s death. While she had gone to a psychiatrist and psychologist for help, no one or treatment had helped her.
“Can you help me?” she asked.
I suggested she write Pa a letter. “Tell him everything about you. It may take a year but tell him the truth about your growing up and your life. Do not avoid anything. You’ll laugh, cry a bunch, and re-suffer growing up. Scratch the untruths, and re-write the truths. When finished writing to him, read it one last time, then burn the pages.”
I live my life over—but memories change nothing—now I understand
Sy