When my worlds collided
I am about to take you on a trip down to a time, when the worst things that can -happen all happens at once it seems. My name is Jason Lewis, I am a very large male that has been thru lots of pain and suffering and will now tell you the tale of just a small portion of my life. It all started January 4th, 1974 my sister Allison was born; she was a very sick child and spent a lot of time in the hospital. It started when she was about 4 years old she had an IV put in her ankle to help her eat. When she was around 14 years old she was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, which is a death sentence or a terrible lung disease which ever you chose to call it. Most people diagnosed with this don’t live longer than the age of 18 years old; she lived until she was 28.
It is now March of 2002, it is snowing out which is not too unusually for this time, but we had people in from California who have never seen snow. It almost seemed the way people were reacting was as if they were little kids in a candy shop. We were at a hotel in Glenview for what was to be such a beautiful occasion, my sisters wedding. All went well there except the D.J. never showed up, so there was no wedding march. My sister looked like a princess and my brother in-law Rob looked like prince charming, it was a match made in heaven.
It is now August of 2002 I am working at Kraft Foods as a security guard, and loving it. I send my sister out some Oreo brownies and Oreo’s, since it is her favorite and Kraft makes them so I get a deal on them. She started not feeling good and we talked at least once every couple of days. Unfortunately for her my mom went out there and tried to help as best as she could. The next thing I knew I was at work and got the call that she was going into the hospital. I knew something wasn’t right when she hadn’t eaten any of the treats I had sent out to her. It gave me this very uneasy feeling in my stomach that something was not right, and that something bad was going to happen. That same month was my cousins wedding I decided to go to the wedding and take off for California right after the ceremony. I was told over and over again that she was fine and the doctors said that there was no reason for me to come. I had to go and see for myself, so I jumped on a plane late at night. The first of bad things to come was when I got on the plane I was stuck between two other large people, they were much smaller that me in comparison. It almost looked like someone had taken three elephants of different sizes and stuck them into a sardine can, needles to say it was a very uncomfortable flight.
Within a weeks time my sister got worse and worse, to the point where she would never make a full recovery. The thing that hurt me the most was that I never got a chance to talk to her in person again before she died. Since by the time I got there they had put her into a coma like state. The time came when I had to talk to my mom and brother in-law about just letting her go and not letting her suffer anymore. The reason I did this was that the doctor had told us “that there was no miracle cure or transplant that can be done to safe her, she will die slowly over the next couple days, weeks, months, etc. but no chance for recovery. Her organs will shut down and she will become septic and eventually die.” I stated to my mom and Rob “We should see about pulling the plug, because we all know that she would not like to be in this state and have everyone crying over her” they both agreed.
The day that we pulled the plug I gave her one last kiss good bye and had to leave the hospital, since I couldn’t watch another family member take their last breath. I went and got a tattoo for her and my dad who had passed away just 3 years earlier. When I meet up with the family over at my Aunt Bonnie’s house, which is a beautiful large house with two floors and a coy pond that almost seems to enter the living room. The reason I say this is there are several large glass windows which allows you to see it all. When I came in and saw everyone I told them what I had done and they wanted to see my tattoo. I showed them all the heart dripping blood from the base with a banner in it with my dads and sisters initials in it; it was done over my heart and in a shade of black and grayish in color in some areas. My Aunt then came over to me and stated “I can’t believe you left to get that done when your sister was taking her last breath you should have been there to see that.” I then stated “I watched my grandmother take her last breath and promised from then on I would never witness anyone else do that.” She came back at me with this statement which started off the whole thing “You are not her brother, you never cared for her and shouldn’t shed a tear, and the only reason you are here is to be with Rob and your mom and to comfort them both.” Over the following couple of days is when the things seemed to get worse and worse.
Two days later in accordance with Jewish tradition we laid my sister to rest, back to the Earth from which she came. The cemetery Rob had picked out was stunning to say the least; it was built on top of a mountain. The land was built to try and resemble different areas of Jerusalem from the days of my ancestors. When we arrived in the owner of the L.A. Lakers personal limo, which had all the amenities anyone could ask for except head room because while getting in I smashed my head against the side of the door frame. We were than greeted by the parking guide, he asked us “is this the Shulman family” before anyone else can speak I said in a very angry tortured voice “this is the Lewis and Weiner family the deceased is Allison Weiner, maiden name Allison Lewis, no Shulman family has lost there sister, wife, or daughter today.” I then began to inform him “Bonnie was an Aunt and nothing else; she is not allowed to be back here unless one of us specifies that to you.” He did not answer but by the look on his face you could tell he understood.
We entered and there was a long hallway which we had to walk down to get to the waiting area for the family. Low and behold who was waiting in there grieving as if she lost her own daughter but Bonnie. I was trying to keep my cool with her on this day of any but I could not since she went up to my mom and stated “Allison was like a daughter to me, she will be greatly missed. While she lived out here I took her under my wing and raised her the best way that I could.” Funny part is that my sister moved out to California when she was 24 years old. I went ahead and told off Bonnie, I told her “on this day of all you need to respect me, my mother, her husband Rob, and I don’t care if you respect me or not because you were only an Aunt nothing else so deal with it. She had one mother and one mother only, you will never be her so why don’t you try and make your kids lives better and help them instead of trying to make us hurt even more than we already are.” The ceremony proceeded with out any more incidents till we got back to the house of Shiva. The house of Shiva is where you go to pay your respects to the family of the deceased for about a weeks worth of time or less. When we arrived not all of the people that were there knew who we where. They were under the impression that Bonnie was her mother and they had no idea Allison had a brother. I was so hurt by this it felt as is my heart had jumped out of my chest and collapsed, I went over to Bonnie and said “listen up, I am sick and tired to all the stuff that you have pulled and now I find out that you have never told anyone about me your own nephew, what did I ever do to you to deserve this kind of treatment.” She answered back to me “You have stated it yourself on many occasions that you too did not get along well with your sister and you are here only to be by your mother and Rob’s side in there time of need.” I told her off in such hatred of words that the paper this is written on would burst into flames if I were to put them on here. You could tell she was thinking what nerve do I have telling her off like that, just by the stunned look on her face but I stood my ground. Needless to say I to this day I rarely ever talk to her in a tone other than hatred for what she has done to me and my family. The rest of my family has forgiven or moved on with it but Rob and I both have stuck to our guns so to speak.
