IN MEMORY OF JEANNE

My sister died  in February, 2002.

This weekend, Martin Luther King Jr's weekend, was the last time I saw her, so my thoughts today are not only of the deeds of King, but also memories of my sister. She was only eleven months younger than I, and, as children,  we were often mistaken for twins. Our paths began to diverge during our high school years, although we remained best friends. She took business classes while I studied for college. She married young, a high school boyfriend, remained in our home town, and raised five children. But tragedy followed her. A divorce, the suicide of someone she loved, a breakdown, a growing dependence on prescription drugs. But in most of my memories, she is young and vibrant, full of mischief and charm.

I can see her at sixteen.  Everyone in our small high school knows her, and her antics are often the subject of delighted gossip. She is the extrovert, the jokester.
   During our high school years she has a crowd of friends.  The boys call her “Babe.”  It seems that even the kids in my class, a year ahead of hers, revel in her latest antics.
 A typical day in school. I am walking with a friend, who is, if anything, more studious than I.  She is plump with pale freckled skin, frizzy blonde hair and a decided overbite.  To compliment the effect, she wears inch-thick glasses.  I am tall and thin, awkward from having grown five inches in two years, and though people label me shy, I am merely quiet.
 We are serious about our schoolwork, with plans for the future.  Although we have the usual teenage crushes on boys, they are always secret, aimed at unattainable boys.  We walk with our books hugged to our chests.  As we round a corner we hear a chorus of shouts, laughter, and noise.
A crowd has gathered and we stop to see what is going on. My friend elbows someone aside and I see Jeanne in the center. Her blue eyes are flashing and she is laughing, head back, her too tight sweater pulled up, revealing a band of flesh.
She has torn the chain bearing the class ring of the boy she currently “loves,” from the neck of his previous girlfriend who has refused to return it to him.  Her latest crush is a sexy, dangerous boy with  a curl dangling over his forehead, who hangs with the roughest North Mill Street crowd.
Jeanne is triumphant, crowing, the center of attention, displaying the chain that dangles from her fist.  The other girl, a wiry, mean-faced peroxide blonde, is being prevented from attacking my sister with sharp red nails.  Several teachers, among them the swaggering young football coach, step into the fray and haul both of them off to the principal’s office.  I imagine my mother’s angry humiliation when she is called to come into school again. She is pregnant with her ninth child, and our house has become a battleground between her and Jeanne.
Jeanne associates with the rowdiest group, but also has friends in every other clique. She gets in trouble for telling teachers off and disrupting classes, yet the teachers all seem to like her.  Even the most popular kids, the college bound and athletes, greet her in the hallways and laugh at her antics.
I am sometimes embarrassed by her and a little envious. I admire her free spirit.  Some part of me would like to run heedlessly through the hallways, surrounded by admirers and friends, breaking all the rules and avoiding serious consequences by dint of big blue eyes and a charming personality.  Couldn’t these qualities just as well have been the marks of someone headed for success?

When I returned to my home town for my tenth reunion, my fellow classmates wanted to know about Jeanne. (I had married, had a son, completed a master's degree in Theater, while she still lived in town about a mile from where we'd grown up.)
She was a favorite with her nieces and nephews, known for her teasing and slightly risqué humor. At family gatherings she was usually the center of attention. She changed dramatically, unexpectedly and went swiftly downhill despite every effort to help her.
Some part of me is angry at her for leaving us too soon, but mostly I miss the sister I grew up with, who shared my bedroom, my secrets, my friendship.