Leighta

She was born on Valentine's day. I used to give her something with a heart every year to commemorate that day. She loved the color purple... and she loved those little hot cinnamon heart candies that are always around in the convenience stores. One year I gave her a huge jar of those...heart shaped, of course.

She had long red hair most of her life. There was a period of time in her early 20's when it was short and blondish....which was amusingly ironic because she hated blonds. OH...and there was a time in her adolescence when one of our older sister's cut her hair and she looked like a boy. We all thought mom was gonna have a cow over that one. Other than those two accounts, I believe she had hair at least shoulder length or longer her whole life. It was straight and she always envied curly. She got me to cut it once and I did the best I could, but she hated it and cried like I shot her cat or something. I never cut it again no matter how she begged. "Nope...NOT gonna go thru THAT again" I recall saying.

Leighta was the 4th of six. I'm number 5. She was the one who read to me at bedtime or when I was sick and not allowed out of bed. She was the one who brushed my hair and put it up in a pony tail when we had to get ready for school. She was the one who got mad as HELL when I pee'd in the bed cause she swore I rolled over onto her side on purpose. I was only 7...sheesh. She was the one who got so mad at me she could spit because I lost her Barbie's shoes....again. But then...she was also the one who taught me how to make a house for my "Kittles" dolls out of a shoebox. She taught me how to design the inside and draw the windows and cut out the door...and how to con mom into giving me the empty thread spools from her sewing to use as tables. We would sit out on the back concrete porch, beside the basement sliding glass doors and make these little houses and play for hours...and when we got hungry we'd pick the tommytoes that mom grew in the little flower garden spot next to the house and drink water from the garden hose. And we had no idea we were in heaven.

Leighta had one doll that was really special to her. Her name was Giggles. lol...funny name... makes ya smile just knowing that was her name, huh? Giggles was wall eyed...lol...used to creep people out because if you didn't tilt her head just right, one of her eyes would always fall in the other direction and she would be surveying the entire room. I wasn't allowed to play with Giggles much....but ESPECIALLY if Leighta wasn't around to supervise. I don't know if Santa brought that doll to Leighta.... I suspect he did in one way or another. Leighta gave Giggles to me later ...when we became adults. I remember saying to her..."now, if you give this to me don't ask for it back...cause you won't get it...NO INDIAN GIVING!" she kinda chuckled like she didn't really know what I meant and said "NO...she's yours." ... I still have Giggles....and she's still wall eyed.

Once, when Leighta was a little girl, she asked Santa for a "red headed kitty cat" for Christmas. My parents told the story... that they had NO idea where they were going to find this cat. They looked...callled... searched... finally someone had a litter and one of the kittens was an orange tabby. So off they went...and home came the red headed kitty cat that Leighta so badly wanted. She named him Pursy. He was a monster of a cat too. He used to sit on the metal cans we had in the back yard and smack the dogs on the snoot when they came to raid the trash. When he wasn't doing that he was smacking at mom's ankles when she was walking out to the clothes line to hang the laundry...that made mom nutz...but we laughed. Leighta loved that cat and he was with her....with us...till she was almost out of High school. I think it broke her heart for a while when he died.

She was the one who taught me how to ride a tobacco stick pony and that when the pony went lame, we put mud on our ankle so it would heal and be able to gallop across the back yard again. She was the one who showed me how to sneak the thorns off of our mother's rose bushes so we could use them as thumb tacks when we played school or office out back under the Maple trees. She was the one who taught me to ride my banana seat bicycle....ok...not taught exactly. I think what she said was "HEY.... if I had to learn on the gravel road... SO DO YOU....you won't fall that many times." ugh... I was so mad at her for that....till I got the hang of it and found she was right. Gravels are a great motivator for defying gravity.

Leighta wanted to be loved...and she wanted to give love.... she wanted to be accepted for herself. She was creative...and talented...and unpredictable. She came to know the 60's in the 70's. She was born in 1959, so her high school years were a turning point for her. Our family moved during those years...and that was really hard on her. She never adjusted very well. We went from the place where she knew everyone...in a small town... to a larger, more urban town... where she knew no one. So, it was horrific inside her...to be the new girl... to be a redhead....to have boobs bigger than anyone else... to be the target. The one that everyone is staring at or talking about. Like high school isn't tough enough when you've grown up with everyone...
So... I think that's when her bi~polar issues began to surface. She was so close to our daddy in her youth... and she didn't want to disappoint him nor our mother. She wanted to be what they wanted and expected her to be....but she couldn't fight her own curiosity or urges to fit in. To be accepted. She wanted to be special...and when you're the 4th of 6...it's kind of hard to feel special.
As the years passed... Leighta told our parents lies about where she went...who she was with... things she was doing and things she wasn't. Eventually our parents stopped trusting her. She battled her weight... who doesn't huh? but she seemed obsessed over it ...or rather our mom was. Mom hates fat and to Leighta that translated into she hated Leighta.
Our father often made the comment... as he aged... that he wanted to be sure that Leighta got her share too. I think he was referring to when he and mom were gone. I think he knew that something was different with Leighta...and I think he loved her in a special way that he couldn't always articulate to her. I think she sometimes could pick up on it, but then she was off in another direction and missed it completely. I saw it... I knew it....and I understood.
Leighta was talented with paint and pen. She loved art and she could draw almost anything...her art was abstract. Much like her mind became.... a jumble of things that made no sense to anyone who didn't know her mind. And even some of those folk didn't get it.
She got into drugs... and probably drinking some...most teens do at some time or other. But she wasn't very good at hiding things...and always got busted. I often sat back and watched how things unfolded with her and my parents and thought to myself..."well, THATs not the way to do it." I learned a great deal from the hell that Leighta put herself thru. I learned to rip the bandage off quickly. Just blurt it out...get it out there...up front...and over with. The yelling would always last longer if it was compounded with a lie...so I decided not to lie about most shit. It was just too difficult to keep your story straight. Leighta taught me that....even though she wasn't trying to. I really don't think she wanted to lie about things... I think she just couldn't handle being the disappointment.
So... she fell in love...lust... something. I hope at some point it was love. And she married on Christmas Eve. Our parents were so against it....but there was no telling Leighta. She wanted out of the house and in control of herself...her own life... and this was an out. But the marriage wasn't what it should have been. They really weren't good for each other. They drank and did drugs...and they fought. God...the fights. He got violent and I'm sure she did too. She never knew when to just stop talking and I'm sure that contributed to the volatile nature of their relationship. They were both at fault. But they stayed together...and she had two sons. Both beautiful boys... and both with issues of their own. I'm reasonably certain that she was on something when she conceived them....or while she was carrying them.
It was a much less than ideal situation to bring children into. But she loved those boys. She tried to be a good mom...but she just wasn't that cut out for it. She couldn't let go of her inner demons...and those demons were growing progressively as things went further south in her life.
Eventually... at the age of 16... her eldest son committed suicide. She was gone with her husband to handle a drug situation. I don't know where... I don't know with whom. I don't know if they were buying or selling or just using... I don't know anything other than when they returned home they found their son dead in the basement while his younger brother played upstairs.
This death devastated her and she never recovered. Eventually she left her abusive spouse...for good. (she had yo-yo'd back and forth so many times in previous years) They divorced...and her surviving son wanted to live with his father. Another nail in her gut.
Leighta decided to go back to college and get her degree. She was working very hard and getting wonderful grades...she had grants and was doing well for a short while. But then her tangent surfaced and she was off course again. It was so frustrating to watch her lose sight of her goal. And it was so sad to see her fall deeper into the hole she was digging for herself.
As the years passed and her health began to deteriorate, Leighta had two hip replacements and all her teeth pulled so that she could have false teeth. She was in her 40's and the doctors didn't want to do the surgery on such a young woman, but her pain was so great that they finally relented and did it. She was good for a while. But when she healed...and the pain was gone... she walked the line she was accustomed to...and it led her at an angle again. Eventually her heart attacked her.
She died twice on the table and they brought her back. She had so much damage that it left her weak and scared and vulnerable. She was finally diagnosed with bi~polar disorder when she got so depressed that she tried to kill herself. She had more heart problems and her doctor wanted to do open heart surgery but she refused. From what I was told she didn't want the scar. I guess she preferred to wear all her scars on the inside.
So... we come to the day she died.
Leighta died from a massive coronary on Jan 3rd at 7pm... about a month shy of her 50th birthday. She just stopped...and never came back. She didn't have any money and she didn't want anyone else to have to "take care of her" so she made it known that she had made arrangements to have her body donated to science. Unfortunately, the timing didn't work out for that. So her body ended up cremated. I never had a family member leave me and not have a physical place to call their resting place. So grieving for her has been different. The closure came slowly as the family decided how to handle our goodbye.
It was decided that we would all come together if we could on her birthday. And it was decided that we would place her upon the grave of her eldest son. So, I traveled home. And most of my siblings that could make it were there. We hugged...and we stood in a circle as our elderly mother poured Leighta's ashes out. She spoke only one phrase..."Happy Birthday, Leighta" and we all cried. Silent tears fell... and the wind moved the air. Our oldest brother took over when mother couldn't do more. And the two eldest sisters assisted as well. I watched... and absorbed the moments as best I could. I stood there remembering how she had told me she wanted "Still Crazy After All These Years" played at her funeral...and then our oldest sister played Sarah McLaughlin's "Angel"... saying that she knew this was one of Leighta's favorite songs. That brought to mind the conversation that Leighta and I had a few years prior about Sarah McLaughlin. Leighta had made the comment that she thought Sarah was ugly...and I defended her. I don't tolerate someone making fun of or making negative comments about someone's looks. Things they do... or things they say...sure. Fair game. But the body and face.... no. People can't always help how they look. So...we had a lengthy disagreement about ole Sarah....and I chuckled to myself when Sarah's song began to play. Then I cried.
It was good to say good bye... but I will... I do miss her.
The day was warm and sunny.