My Sister Sherry

My sister Sherry and her son Jimmy

Besides Connie, I have a younger sister named Sherry. Sherry doesn't fall a lot or say things backward, but she does occasionally wet her pants. Oh and she did fall crossing a street once in Barstow. She twisted her ankle and her friend, Chris, ran and got an office chair on wheels and pushed her back to her office. I'm sure that was entertaining for someone.

Unlike Connie who is 10 years older than me, Sherry and I are only 2 years apart so we grew up together. I should say we blew up together, because all we did was fight. My poor mom, we couldn't get along for 2 mins. My brother Tim and I fought all the time too, but when I got into high school, he and I got very close, but not Sherry and I.  We fought right through to our adult years. I called her the sister from hell, the wild cat. She would get so mad and just go berserk when we were kids. Coming at me, fists flying. We were all scared of her. She took no guff and you never knew what would set her off.

When I moved out of the house to Huntington Beach, and in with Connie,  Sherry would come for 'vacations'.  Every time she said she was coming, Connie and would look at each other in terror and look up the fastest flight out of the country.  =}

Sherry had been a 'towhead' from birth. Super white hair that everyone noticed. I was the mousey brown haired girl no one saw. Everywhere we went people commented on Sherry white hair. No one ever said anything about me. One Christmas my mom gave us new dolls, she gave me one with white hair and Sherry one with brown hair. She said I never played with mine. One day she said, "You don't like you new doll do you?" I said, "It has hair like Sherry." She said that was the first time she knew I had a problem with Sherry getting so much attention. So she switched the dolls and I was fine. (I remember the dolls well, but not the part of my being upset over getting one with white hair.)

As we got older her hair darkened and no one said anything about it anymore, but a strange thing began to happen. Everywhere we went people asked if we were twins. Sherry was a bean poll, very thin. I was thin but not like her, she was a good 3ins taller then me and she was blond! What were people seeing that they thought we were twins?

Then one day Sherry got married,  and aliens came down and sucked out her old personality and she got a new one. She was changed, ... over night. Gone was the over sensitive sister from hell. She became, ... our mom. She was so, ... nice! Who knew? If I had known marriage would do this for her, I'd have married her off in the 2nd grade.

Sherry and Jimmy on one of their visits to Florida (do we look like twins!) Oh and you also have to imagine us 20lbs lighter as we have all been on Weight Watchers. (Not bean polls anymore ={ )

Now we were close. We talked, we got along, we were friends.  Sadly it was now her walking on egg shells. Her husband was not easy to live with. The marriage lasted 12years. Then he found a new women and well, that was that. But she got one really great thing from the marriage, and little boy named Jimmy. Not so little now, but he was so sweet and so cute as a little guy. (He's cute as a big guy too, and a great kid)

Jimmy all grown up

Divorce stinks, but Sherry had great friends and they got her through it. Soon after that, Sherry woke up one day in terrible pain. The Dr. said she had 3 masses in her abdomen. It was ovarian cancer. Not what we wanted to hear. But God is good.

With the help of a wonderful friend named Chris and her church family, and her brothers (Connie and I were in Florida so had to stay in touch long distant) she came through it. She was prone to infections and it was a long hard fight, but finally she was doing well. But it came back. 3 times she has batteled this disease and 3 times SHE has won.

I must say she is a real trooper. Very little complaining. No pity parties, I know the Lord got her throught it and her good friend, Chris. Thank God for Chris. I don't know what we would have done without her. She was so great. Always at Sherry's side. Her husband was so generous with her, allowing her to even spend nights near the hospital so she could be there to talk to the Drs early in the mornings when they made their rounds. She was amazing. Thank you Chris.

Sherry's good friend Chris (with her grandbaby)

This last time with lots of prayer for no infections and quick healing, she did super well. Treatment is done once again and she just had a CAT-scan and is cancer free. Thank you Lord!

We are praying it is gone for good this time. I have her on prayer lists all the time, (Facebook has lots of them) lots of friends and family are praying too. Her son is a real prayer warroir, in fact he has been asked to attend the International House of Prayer this summer. We are very proud of him. This time I will believe the cancer is gone, killed off, annihilated. Will you pray that too?

Sherry is very involved in her church. She took up where mom left off, taking on lots of jobs and doing great in each of them. She's a good mom, a great friend and a wonderful sister. I'm very proud of her.

Sherry hopes to move to Florida one day, and this time we won't be looking for the fastest flight out of the country. It will be good to have her near us. Jimmy says he'll move too. It will be great to have him close, to get to know him better. He was just 5 when we moved to Florida and we have miss so much of his life. When you are a World Champion Auntie it is very hard to be so far from neices and nephews.

Sherry is in my books too. Shes a little squirrel, though I should have made her a bulldog with all the fight that is in her. I didn't tell my family I was writing a book. When the first one was published, I just mailed them a copy. They were shocked. They all received them the same day and I got 3 phone calls, (my 2 brothers and Sherry) one after another. I had caught a bad cold and had lost my voice, so could only talk a bit, but they were so excited for me and very proud. (I hadn't put my brother Mike in the book and he was a bit disappointed in that, so had to put him in the next one.)

Being part of a family has its hard moments, but also great reward. I'm so glad I have my 2 sisters with me still. Sherry will celebrate her 52nd birthday in August. (she'll probably kill me for telling you that) Oh no! I better look out for her flying fist of fury.  =}

My Friend Linda Part 1

Today I want to tell you about my good friend Linda McMillan. Linda died of cancer 5 years ago, seems so much longer.

Linda was one of those people, you know, the kind that became instant friends with everyone. Everyone she knew thought of her as their best friend. At her memorial service, everyone who got up to speak, said. "Linda was my bestfiend."

From the very first day Linda stepped foot in the head quarters of Wycliffe Bible Translators in Huntington Beach California, she was our bestfriend. In fact she and Connie were pretty much inseparable.

Linda had been a wild child, smoking, drinking, partying. She married another wild child, it didn't last. Linda was searching for something, she tried different religions, but one day a kid on a bus yelled out to her, "Jesus loves you!" She never forgot that, she kept thinking about it and one day a friend led her to the Lord. He'd been a real wild child, a heavy drug user, but one day he showed up, a totally changed man. She had to know why, so he told her and her life was totally changed too. Boy was it ever.

Linda was a waking testimony, sharing her faith with everyone she met. I'm sure when she got to heaven, many people greeted her with whom she had shared , other people who's lives were forever changed. There was just something about Linda, people felt safe with her and they told her their life stories, in check out lines, at gas stations, information booth. It was amazing. When we went shopping and had to wait for her (and it took forever), she'd come running and say, "Sorry I took so long, but that poor girl. She told me....." Her life story with all her troubles and woes. People just saw something in her, no doubt it was Jesus. Linda had a way of befriending the "forgotten" people. The ones most people wouldn't give the time of day. She always took time for them, went out of ther way for them. Made them feel loved and important.

One of those friends was an older lady named Phyllis. I don't think she had any friends, except Linda, and was rather difficult to work with. Phyllis became very ill and die. Linda arranged her memorial service and asked our pastor to led it. He did such a wonderful job and it was a very nice service. Just one of the many loving things Linda did for people.

Linda was very funny too. You can be a good Christian and be funny. Who knew?! When we met Linda she was working temporarily at the office waiting for her visa. She was going to Colombia as a missionary. She was only in the office for 9 months but she made a huge impact. She started a group called the WUGGs. Wycliffe Unattached Guys and Gals. We had a ton of young singles working at the office. She organized activities for us every weekend. (I'm sure she is on the Social Committee in Heaven).

When she finally got her visa for Colombia, instead of celebrating that she was finally going to the mission field, we went into mourning. She was leaving us and we were going to miss her terribly. Linda ministered in Colombia for over 20yrs, and of course became bestfriends with everyone there too.

 Linda was a good letter writer (this was way before cell phones, skype and even e-mail, though we did start using e-mail once we got it.) and kept in close touch with Connie and I and others I'm sure. She came home on furlough every 3-4 years and we'd just take up were we left off, like we'd never been apart.

When our father died, Linda told us that she'd be in Calif  and could come to the service in Hinkley. She come alright. People at the service were coming up to Connie & I and saying, "Your friend Linda is so wonderful," and on and on about her. Connie and I are going, "Hey, we are the ones who's father died, remember us?" 

She stayed with us at our folks home the rest of our stay in Hinkley. We rented the movie "Erin Brockovich" while she was there. She was so thrilled to watch a movie about Hinkley (where I grew up) in Hinkley. (If you've never heard of the movie you can google it).

Wycliffe moved from Hungtoning Beach to Orlando in 1999 and about a years later Wycliffe closed the Colombia Branch. Linda moved to Orlando and went to work at the HQ as an accountant. The finance dept didn't know what hit them.


When she first moved to Orlando, she stayed with Connie and I at our apt until she could find a place of her own. We rode to work together everyday and every evening when we got in the car to go home, she'd say, "Ok, this is what we are going to do tonight..." One week she went to Dallas for meetings and she called. "What are you doing," she asked. "Nothing," I said. "I'm just sitting on the couch staring into space. You're not here to tell me what to do." 

Linda slept on a blow up mattress in the livingroom. When she got her own place she didn't have any furniture yet so she took the blow up mattress and asked me to help her get it in the car. She tried every which way to get that thing in the car, but it was not going to fit. I hope the neighbors were watching because it was quite a show. She finally said, "Well I guess I'm just not going to be able to take it." I said, "Why don't you let the air out?" She just looked at me and then cracked up. She hadn't even thought of it. We laughed over that for years.

It seemed we were always making something for a finance party. It was often she and I doing the whole thing. For one party she wanted to make my mom's cinnimon rolls. They were very easy, but we had to make, like 100. We got all the stuff and went to my place to begin our baking. During the process, Linda picked up the pan full of the cinnimon mixture and almost dropped it. She might as well have because she juggled the thing all over the kitchen for at least 3mins, cinnimon was flying everywhere. I was frozen in horror yet facinated by her juggling skills. Our kitchen was covered in cinnimon, but the up side was, it smelled so good for months. Of course we laughed our heads off afterward. I'll never forget the look on her face as she juggled that pan of cinnimon.

Once we had to make a million little egg salad sandwiches. Linda made them one egg at a time. She literally cut up and mixed one egg at a time. I'm just staring at her. Who does that? She said it tasted better that way.

When our parents died, we sold their home in Hinkley and  Connie and I were able to buy a house. Linda was able to rent a room in a house just 2 doors down. (we all agreed that her living with us wouldn't be a good idea, but as you can imagine, she lived mostly at our place anyway.) One evening when she was over we discovered 3 little frogs had gotten in the house. They got in all the time and Connie was scared to death of them. They were less then an inch long, yes, very terrifying. Anyway I managed to catch 2 of them in a box but one hopped into the kitchen under the dishwasher. I said to Linda, "Do you think if we put a bag down it would hop into it?"  "Yeah, thats a good idea."  So we get a grocery bag and Linda get down on the floor and is trying to coxe the tiny frog into the bag. She talked sweet baby talk to it, "Come on baby, get in the bag,"  She put the bag right up to the frog and scared it. It hopped right on her face. We almost killed each other trying to get away. We were both screaming and running around the kitchen like crazy people. I think the frog died of a heart attack.

Ah, Linda, we laughed so much with her. Life with  was never dull. By the time she moved to Orlando Connie and I were hanging with "The Gang". It didn't take her long to fit in, though there were a few clashes with other strong personalities, but with a few adjustments, she once again became everyones bestfriend and our social director.

Stay tuned for Part II.

Connie Can Even Make Chemo Funny.




Connie blowing out her candles last year (June 12th 2010)

Eight years ago Connie was diagnosed with breast cancer. She found a lump and was scared to death, but I kept telling her, "it's nothing." She always thinks she has cancer. I got used to statements like, "I have a headache, I know it's a brain tumor." "My elbow aches, it's bone cancer!" "I have black spots in front of my eyes! I have eye cancer!" After years of hearing this, I found it hard to take it seriously, after all she had had

breast cancer at least 106 times.

 But this time it was for real.

It's a terrifing feeling when someone you are close to gets a life threatening illness. I did a lot of praying, begging really.

You wouldn't think you'd find anything funny about cancer, but with Connie the possibility of a good story is never far away.

Of course, after surgery, chemotherapy was ordered and when she started to lose her hair, it fell out in clumps. Our good friend, Linda McMillian, thought it best to shave her head. It's rather tramatic to lose your hair, but even then we could find humor. Linda bought a bunch of skull caps and all of finance, and other friends at the office, put them on and met her at the entrance the day after her hair was gone. Two of the men even shaved their heads so she wouldn't feel alone. (She is well love at the office. The day of her surgery, depts. all over our office stopped work at the time of the surgery and gathered in groups to pray.)

As you go through chemotherapy, it changes. They use different drugs at different times. One day the nurse told her one of the new drugs would turn her 'urine orange'. Connie thought she said it would turn her 'earrings orange', so she says, "It will turn my earrings orange! Should I take them off? And what about my watch, should I take that off too?" Our good friend Jane was with her and laughed her head off. She told us about it later, so for her birthday, which was just days away, everyone gave her a pair of orange earrings.



Connie and our friend Larry modeling chemo caps

Connie wore hats when she first lost her hair, a co-worker made her chemo caps. Fun, fuzzy, colorful hats. Connie loved them and wore them in the evenings because her head was always cold. But for work she decided to get a wig. We went to a wig shop and the sales lady was very helpful. She fited her with a very nice, natural looking wig.  It looked good on her and she loved it - it made it so fast to get ready in the morning. No  more fussing with her hair, just pull your wig on and you're ready. Even after her hair grew back, she thought about sticking with the wig.

Connie in her new wig

Larry in Connie's wig   =}

Connie always kept her head covered up. I'm not sure I ever saw her  little bald head until... the accident.

One day on our way home from church, we were sitting at a red light when WHAM!!! we are hit very hard from behind. It was such a shock. I couldn't figure out what had happened. We flew forward, legs flying up hitting the dash, then back. My seat flew back as far as it would go, then sprung. It felt like I was sitting on the floor. A sports car had rear-ended us.

Thank the Lord it was a small car, or we would have been in the hospital or worse. (We only got a bit sore and huge bruises were our legs hit the dash, and from the seatbelt)  There were 3 SUV's in front of me. Being squished between 4 cars caused my car to bend, a huge crease appeared right down the middle of the roof. It was totalled. (but amazingly, still driveable)

After we made sure we were Ok and in one piece, I soon realized my vision wasn't right. My glasses had flown off from the impact. As I searched for them, I finally really looked at Connie and with my fuzzy vision I could see her little bald head. Her wig had flown off just like my glasses. She starts to get out of the car and I said, "Your wig came off!" She said something to me, I never knew what, as I was so shocked she was getting out of the car like that. She just shut the car door and went to talk to the guy who hit us. I'm thinking, I cannot believe she is going out there without her wig. She must  be really mad!  She wouldn't even let me see her without it.

There she was (so brave), talking to everyone, the guy who hit us, the guys we hit, and the policeman who came. Even people driving by. A big church was getting out right where we were  hit and a ton of cars were going by. We knew some of the people and Connie is waving. I'm thinking, "I cannot believe she is doing this without her wig!" She just had these little wispy hairs sticking up, blowing in the wind. It was so sad.

After all the talking was done, we stood in the medium waiting for the policeman to give us his report, and I say to her, again, "You do know that you don't have your wig on, right?" Apparently not from the look on her face. She put both hands on her head, her eyes bugged out, her mouth flew open, "Oh no!" She runs to the car and franticly looks for the wig. (I guess when I told her the first time she was in shock so didn't even hear me.) We found her wig  in the back seat along with my glasses. (I said if anyone had been sitting there, they'd be wearing my glasses and her wig.=) She grabs up the wig and jams it down on her head, she can't believe she has gone wigless in front of all those people. I can't believe she didn't know. Couldn't she feel the wind blowing those wispy little hairs around?

Since my car was driveable, I drove it home and we are laughed our heads off over the wig or lack of it. Connie is like my mom. She always laughs at her own crazy antics. I thought about it for months. I would just suddenly start to laugh and Connie would say, "You're thinking about the wig again aren't you?"

Connie has been cancer free for 5 years. When asked if she'd ever what to go through it again, she always say no, (of course) but she was glad she had cancer. It showed her how much God really loved her. He did something speical for her everyday to show her how much He cared and she grew so much during that time. And she has since done a few things she had been afraid to do before, like travel out of the country. Once you've faced the possiblily of death, nothing else seems that scary.

Her hair grew back a long time ago, it's darker now, all the gray is gone. That is often a side benefit of chemo, (besides it killing the cancer and all ) I don't think its fair. She is 10yrs older then me and I am totally gray. At 64, she should have tons of gray. But since she's had cancer, I'll let it pass.

I'm so thankful my sister is still here and will be 64. That's sound old, but it's really not. Haven't you heard, 60 is the new 50. She still looks great and  is still pretty spry, (when upright). No one would ever guess her age, (so act surprised if she tells you).

In my Super Pig books she is Connie Collie, it's a good choice. She's a faithful and loyal friend, a great big sister and she fetches really well.  Just kidding. I am thinking of keeping her on a leash though, she fell again this week. She was out walking in our neighborhood. (Thank goodness none of our neightbors saw her, I'd have to wear a bag over my head when with her), but a man driving by stopped to see if she was OK. She said she was used to falling and was fine. She has a swollen, badly bruised knee, is very sore, but no teeth were knocked out.

I do hope she lives to see 65. 

This is Connie and I with our nephew Jimmy. You can see how dark her hair is compared to mine.

Is this fair?  (She is even smirking about it).