There are two stories I would like to tell about my little sister Lark. The first one occurred some unknown date during a lightning storm when my eleven old sister was at her friend Shana’s house across the street and apparently had jar of change with her. I imagine them both sitting by the window and looking out at the lighting. Then according to Lark she decided to run back to our house carrying the jar of metal coins, drops the jar, trips over it, and while doing so avoids a lightning bolt that struck, according to lark, about two to three feet in front of her. And, if she hadn’t of tripped over the jar she, would, have, been, struck, by, lightning.
This Lark's luck in a crispy black nutshell.
It was very unfortunate that no one but Lark herself was there to witness the event and to see vital details such as how far away the lightning was. This detail was only as viable as the faculties of Lark’s scared twelve year old mind could have grasped. When Lark told this story for the first time in front of me and my other younger siblings using her eleven year old voice there was a long pause. To older siblings who needed to keep control over the amount of cool stories your younger siblings had in comparison to you this was too cool for Lark and I could feel the ugliness of jealousy almost take away the chance of proving if this story really happened, to anyone. Lightning was like natures' Britney Spears and saying you tripped over something to avoid getting hit by it was like saying you punched Britney Spears in the face by accident. I was the oldest in the car at the time so I had to take the initiative. "Wait, what happened?" I asked coyly. She told it again. Then I asked again how far away the lightning was and she told the same thing every time. What reason do I have not to believe her? Lark is now sixteen and our family still asks about it like it just happened. This story is almost Lark cliché to me now and would be cliché if it wasn’t for the fact that it happened to her, if that makes any sense. It will though. It expresses so well how lucky Lark is for being so unlucky. The meaning of this paradox for Lark may not be as platonic and slap-sticky as tripping over something to avoid getting struck by lightning but more so to the fact that perhaps sometimes bad things do happen to her but it almost seems like she would want that to happen to her, anyway. So Lark goes out into this lightning storm filled world, trips over her jar of coins and strikes unlucky, gold.
The second story happened on Sunday July,4 of 2010 during a military band concert at Wolf Trap. Our family was peacefully enjoying a bombastic and patriotic performance when Lark was bitten by a tick. Then Lark asked my mom what the chances are of getting Lyme disease were when my older brother replied, “Like 1 in 100,000.” Then my mom said, “You’ll be fine Lark.” I remembered this scene exactly and specifically remember chuckling inside and then feeling some sort of consternation, a brightly curious like concern when my brother said that specific chance for Lark to actually overcome and my mom denying that chance altogether. I remembered this moment just in case it actually did happened, and it did. In remembrance of the one in 100,000 chance my brother blurted out after Lark’s bite I looked up what the chances really were of Lark getting Lyme disease last summer and according to the American Lyme Disease Association there was about a 1 in 10,000 chance in Northern Virginia of getting Lyme disease in July of 2008 which was probably around the same chance in 2010. When one compares the sheer numbers of one in 10,000 to one in 100,000 it just looks like an extra zero. And as the summer turned to Fall the dominoes of Lark’s disease fell into place as she got a rash, started feeling aches in her joints, felt tired and found it difficult to concentrate in school. She asked to be homeschooled for the rest of the year in order to keep from falling further behind and to study in a more comfortable environment.
For me and my family it’s still kind of hard to believe ourselves just how bad Lark's luck is in not only considering these two stories but her whole life. Even more unbelievable is how little it seemed to affect her. Lark came into this world with a heart murmur and for weeks when she was an infant my parents worried about her chances of survival. Today, her heart not only works but she has at least twenty something swimming and soccer trophies in her room. Before her grades started to slip in Larks bout with Lyme disease she was the first person in our family to get straight A's in high-school. Even now during her homeschooling she continues to get good grades, mostly A’s and some B’s and even though she’s been somewhat secluded from the social environment of high school she’s continued to keep close with her friends.
Along with her Lyme disease Lark has scoliosis as well as what doctors say to be eighty-one allergies. She has a changing diet regimen that she needs to keep track of (but constantly asks my mom about) in order to confuse her body into accepting those allergies. Her allergies include: gluten, eggs, dairy, soy, all vegetables in the nightshade family such as potatoes and tomatoes, anything that's artificially flavored, and water. Yes, water. She gets rashes after staying in water for over thirty minutes to include mist and her own sweat. It was torture for her to wear a back brace for her scoliosis during field hockey practice in the summer of 09’. It captured all the sweat and smeared it against her skin and would feel a constant itching during practice on top of the physical exertion. When she took off the brace her skin was raw and red. But when you think of someone who would have allergies and scoliosis and a heart murmur she does not look like the ungainly type to tell her story in front people, raising awareness for such and such allergy foundation. To me Lark’s un-luck almost seems like a point of interest, a claim sake to set her apart from her friends something I could even imagine her being jealous of if someone with more allergies than her nonchalantly came along and took her title.
From my experience Lark has shown little outward signs of complaining or denial to her conditions. On the surface of things it seems like my family has had a harder time accepting Lark’s conditions than she has. There have been discussions about whether Lark was merely overreacting to certain sensations and only thought she had those allergies. This to our family was not out of the range for consideration in that Lark does at times overreact. My sister once got the idea to play dead in front of Lark and scream "gotcha!" while she was looking over her body. When Lark got home she started hyperventilating. Everyone thought she was faking until about half an hour had passed. Again being the oldest I took the initiative to call the ambulance. My parents ran home from their walk to find Lark lying calmly underneath three firemen.
Lark’s helplessness can be overwhelming even in less serious situations. Along with her overreacting Lark also tends to over-laugh. She is over-laughing because no one is laughing as hard as she is at the thing she is laughing about. The reasons vary from her friend saying butter-knife in a funny way to…most of the times I have no idea what she’s laughing about. So at least I sit there wondering if this is some sort of a ploy to receive attention in a family of six children at the dinner table or if she really is this helpless.
In our family we’re all proud in our own ways. I believe in every family there is a certain social real estate were every sibling must stake and develop their own personality and talents. A family with six children can be difficult in a way because you don’t want to be just an extension of your brother or sister.
In the best of times it might seem Lark would want these misfortunes to stand out but I know from personal experience that she is far from wanting them. I came home one evening last fall when while Lark was in the midst of her new homeschooling experience. Her major allergies were present, and her Lyme disease medication was in full swing. I was in the living room and saw on her computer a few lines in what must have been a journal entry for someone who doesn’t normally keep a journal. Only glancing over a few lines, it was clear that even she didn’t know what was going on or if she was overreacting. This was something that hit me hard. As I looked further it was not only us as a family but her own friends that didn’t understand either, not even the doctors fully understood, no one understood. For a sixteen year not being around your friends, not being able to eat what they eat, not knowing what was going, and feeling alienated.
As the spring came things changed. It was then the doctors declared that she had eighty-one allergies and put an impossible number on something I already couldn’t comprehend. It was also then that she was placed on a on rotary diet to try and confuse her body into accepting some of her old allergies. The things I for sure thought she could eat on a day to day basis like apples were something she could only eat next Tuesday. At this time after a lot of medicine and drowsy after affects Lark’s Lyme disease was loosing its grip. She was more energetic now and started inviting more friends over. And during the spring something surprising happened, Lark was able to eat her first and worst allergic food, eggs without reacting. It was an oddly spring like allergy to lose.
I feel as Lark's adjusted to her new situation that I've gone through the same process too. Among other things it was a process of learning that Lark's habits of overreacting had nothing to do with her misfortunes. It was almost a blessing in that I didn't even have to consider if Lark was faking for attention after a certain point albeit that was when Lark was in really bad shape. In our family we each have our own personality our own talents our own bad habits but Lark is undeniably unlucky to me. It's like she has proven through her added trials the truth of her own legend of the lightning. Lark still over-laughs and still overreacts but it has been a pleasure to see things get better for her and for us to at-least know that she could never over-smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment