The Hardest Thing
Posted on August 14, 2009 - Filed Under Personal | 14 Comments
This is my sister Cherith, who would probably kill me if she knew I was posting her picture. 
She’s the third sister and was the baby of the family for seven years before my baby, baby sister, Rebekah came along.
When we were little, Cherith was an easy target for my crazy imaginings. I had a penchant for experimenting with people and she was most often the victim of my experiments. I would forbid her to go to our mom when she got hurt, so I could make a poultice out of comfrey and tie it to her leg, or puff smoke from puffballs onto a wound, all things I’d read in books.
Sarah, my next youngest sister, and I would take Cherith into the woods and there, we would tell her that we were lost and the wolves were coming to eat us. She almost always believed us and we made her cry . . . another experiment! Poor kid. We scared her at night, we made her crawl under the stairs where the (imaginary) black snakes lived and just generally tortured her. Then she grew up a bit and became part of the fun.
We got along tremendously as kids and the three of us would run outside in the dark, screaming and scaring each other whenever we thought we saw red eyes in the woods or hear a strange noise that really could be a monster hiding by the well. It was all fun though and we knew we could run back to the warm light of the house if we were really frightened. And best of all, we were together, which made us braver than you could imagine.
Today, my little sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’s 24 years old. And the hardest thing is that we aren’t there to help her be brave against the scary darkness.
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14 Responses to “The Hardest Thing”
Talk to Me, People!
OMG!!!!
I am SO sorry to hear of this Genesis. I know it is hard to be so far away, but if there is ANYTHING I can do, please let me know…
Send her my thoughts and let her know, you are both in my prayers for a very speedy recovery, she WILL beat this!
Stay strong…
Dear Genesis,
I know you do not know me, but I have been to Guatemala many times and enjoy reading your blog.
I am so sorry to read about your sister, my mom and sister have both gone thru this, I know how difficulty it is! Stay strong for her, I will be praying for you and your entire family!
Take care,
Deb
I’m so sorry. Thinking of you all,and praying for a speedy and full recovery.
Oh Genesis, so sorry to hear this! My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family in this very difficult time.
Oh no! What sad news! I am so sorry to hear of this
But thank goodness we are talking about a diagnosis!! Take heart that there is so much that modern medicine will be able to do to help your sister. Bless her, and I will add my prayers for healing and strength. I am also sending you big hugs and wishes for peace – I know it hurts to be so far away at times like this.
((((Love and Blessings!!))))
It is so hard to watch someone you love suffer.
Thank you very much for all the prayers and well wishes, I appreciate them and I´m passing them on to Cherith.
A little update, the cancer is Stage One, so she has a fairly good prognosis. We’ll know shortly what her treatment schedule is.
I’m sorry to hear that. But grateful that it was detected early. She’ll beat it, have faith with our modern medical miracles.
I´ll be praying for your sister. She´s young and she´ll beat cancer for sure.
This post reminds me of being my older sister´s guinea pig (like Cherith). Probably the most memorable one was getting my bangs cut by her. They didn´t look too straight, so she tried to fix them, like 20 times. I ended up with no bangs!!
A great big hug to your sister, with a bunch of good thoughts thrown in for a good measure!
Thanks, Cristina! I never cut Cherith’s hair, but Sarah did, lol. I wasn’t THAT mean, my gig was psychological experimentation.
Thank you all for the well wishes. I appreciate it. Besides the annoyingly frequent doctors appointments (I absolutly hate doctors and anyone who knows me jokes about how even if I had a broken leg, I would be hobbling down the road yelling over my shoulder “I’m fine…just need to sleep it off!”) I’m doing pretty well. I’m sure Gen will keep you all updated.
And Gen, I won’t kill you for posting that picture but seriously…there are many better pictures and much more recent too…that one is about two years old!
I like that pic, it’s my absolute favorite of yours. Also, it’s handy because it is on the GM site and with my computer being wiped out, I no longer have other photos.
Oh man, Genesis, I just read this. I’ll be praying for your sister. I’m sorry y’all are going through this right now.