Joyce

I have one sister - Joyce. I have never been close to her. She was coming into high school - I was leaving ... coming to the University as I graduated. We lived 3000 miles apart for the next 44 years.

Sure, we visited every so often. Exchanged birthday cards (a card, not a present) ... stuff like that. Not much more. It wasn't that I didn't like Joyce ... I just felt we had little in common. So, I never got to know my sister. I never got close to Joyce.

So, it was tough, very tough, to share anything with her.

And even tougher to ask her if she’d volunteer to be tested as a bone marrow transplant donor. You see, Joyce, my unknown sister, was my best hope for a match. That’s just the way it works. A sibling is your best chance. So, her very remote brother - me - had to ask his sister to do something. And ... I didn’t really know Joyce.

Joyce could have said lots of things. She could have said ... "I’ll talk to Bill", her husband. Or "I’ll call my doctor". Or "let me talk to Marilyn", her daughter, who is a doctor. Or "I’ll ask my minister". Or "I'll talk to Jean" - her best friend. Or "let me sleep on it".

Or just about anything. What Joyce said - immediately - was . . .

"Of course I’ll test for you. You’re my brother."

Sister Joyce, with Bill, her husband, at Lake Tahoe during our vacation together.

A tear for my sister Joyce.

And Joyce continued to do "what’s next". While I was at Good Sam she changed her life and came to visit. It was wonderful. And then she changes it again .... this time for a vacation together. Something we’ve never done before. We have a ball. I learn to truly love my sister.

I’ve always liked my family. And sure, I’ve loved them, too. Yet, today, love has another ... and stronger meaning. It also means . . . appreciation.

Today, if I don’t get an E-mail or phone call or note or something from Joyce every 2^nd or 3^rd day I worry about her. And call her. 44 years - nothing. Today . . . everything.

I’m sure glad HUGGING is an ‘in’ thing to do today. I’m doing a lot of hugging. Joyce, my sister, a lady I hardly knew on December 17, 2001 B.C. - now I hug her a lot! And it is good. It is very good.

Oh ... and Joyce, as a bone marrow transplant donor? - she was NOT a match.

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