Tina

I have three horrible days a year:

April 1. The day my sister, Tina, was born.

June 24. The day she died.

Sivan 19. Tina’s yahrzeit when kaddish is said for her in the temple.

My sister was an incredible person. She could see the best in misery and she was fearless. She was 10 years younger than me and the last of four children.

When she was 13 months old, my mother watched her play under the kitchen sink and pour oven cleaner over herself. My mother cleaned her off and put the oven cleaner soaked sneaker back on her foot. Then, my mother spent the next several hours screaming at Tina to stop crying. Eventually, Tina’s diaper needed changing. That’s when my mother saw the burns. Tina had second and third degree burns from the waist down. The foot wearing the oven cleaner soaked sneaker was burned nearly to the bone. Eventually, the burns healed leaving only a huge scar on top of her foot. Tina thought the scar was interesting. I thought it was an outward scar from child abuse rather than an inward, hidden scar.

When she was in high school, she went skiing with some of her friends. Tina tore wild down the mountain. It’s an Olympic sport now, but then it was called hot dogging. One of her friends asked her where she learned to hot dog. She told her friend that she didn’t know how to ski.

Years later, after I discovered I was adopted and was searching for my father, Tina told me no one wants to see me hurting. She then offered to put me in touch with someone who could, albeit not legally, help me find my father. I declined.

Years later, after her daughter was born, Tina told me she had wanted to be a surgeon. Our parents, being jealous of anyone who had an education and certain it was a waste of money to send a girl to college, decreed we couldn’t go to college. Instead, Tina went to B.O.C.E.S, part of the education system that taught students a trade, and learned to be a hairdresser. But she had wanted to be a surgeon. I told her to go to college and med school. I started college when I was 25, and started law school on my 38^th birthday. I had been admitted to the New York State bar four months before my niece was born. Tina told me it was too late for her and what she wanted to do was take cooking classes. She made me sauteed eggplant with onions and garlic for dinner. It was delicious. I still can’t eat eggplant without crying.

Tina was a fantastic hairdresser. She had moved to New York City, found a job at an upscale salon, and concentrated on hair coloring. She hated it when I referred to hair coloring as a dye job. Tina was Brad Pitt’s hairdresser which means Brad isn’t a natural blond.

Although Tina died 26 years ago, I’ve never recovered from her death. My mother, a truly horrible person, told my other siblings that if they told me Tina had cancer or that she died they would be disinherited. My mother died after spending a few years in a nursing home so there was nothing left to inherit. My siblings had sold their humanity for nothing.

As each horrible day approaches, I wait in anxiety and fear. Will this year be especially painful? Will this year be only sad?

This past Friday, we read kaddish for Tina in my temple. I cried through the entire prayer.  I dread the coming anniversary of her death on the 24th.