Flashback Friday

Welcome to Flashback Friday! The idea is to post about anything in your past. Put up pictures of yourself in embarrassingly dated clothing. Tell the story of something that has happened. The arena is wide open. Chose any medium you wish, but focus on some element of your past that you wish to share.


Recently my sister brought me a huge plastic tub full of Angela's (my other older sister) pictures (and memories).... like ALL her pictures. Trust me there's a bunch. And anyway I was given the task to scan them all in and put them on a disk. So that's kinda why I've been a little MIA lately. Anyway I thought I would share a few with ya'll.
This is my older sister Angela and her 1 year old daughter in about 2000. Isn't she beautiful!


I've been a little sad lately... going through all these pictures makes me remember her and think about her... or the person she once was... (Angela and her daughter Justice at her first birthday party)


Angela was always one of those people that everyone just liked right off the bat. She was crazy and kind of a wild child. But I loved her (still do) She was one of those people that "NEVER" met a stranger, she would talk your ear off. And although she wanted everyone to think she was a bad ass, she was one of the sweetest people you would ever meet. I don't think I ever had an argument with her. I think she was trying to hide the hurt little girl inside. Her biological mother left her when she was a little girl with my father (she's my half sister)
She was such a smart girl and always made straight A's. She had a 4.0 in college and actually after everything happened her college professor called my dad up and told him that he had never seen anyone so smart and was actually a math tutor in college. Of course this was all because all Angela wanted to do was make daddy proud ( I did too but I think that's an impossible task)(my little sister Gracie, Justice, Angela, my older half sister Glynna, Me and my mommy)


Although Angela was super smart, she had one problem. A big problem... she liked to party. Mostly alcohol....
(In the bahamas)

September 16 2001, just days after the terrorist attacks (when I knew the world was gonna end just any minute) I was awakened at midnight to my parents telling me to get my clothes on that we needed to go. Since my father was a police officer at the time and knew all the dispatchers personally they called us only moments after it was called in. Angela and two other friends had been in a serious wreck and she had been thrown from the vehicle as it flipped through a field. We arrived only moments after she got to the ER. She was unresponsive. I walked right in, I saw everything and for a moment time stood still. This wasn't real. I had to be dreaming....



Later, after she was flown to UK we found out she had severe brain damage, because when she was thrown from the car she landed on her head, the doctors were amazed she was still alive. The damage to her brain was causing her legs to draw up. Amazingly though she had no other injuries to her body just her brain. She wasn't expected to make it, but if she did we were told she would never be the same. She would have the mind of a baby at best.




That was 9 years ago. And she is still in the same condition. She has a feeding tube because she can't eat on her own. She wears a diaper because she can't get up to use the bathroom on her own. She can't talk, and she doesn't know me when she looks right at me.
Everyone always asks me why I hate alcohol, and why I'm so hardcore against it. The night I walked in the ER and saw all the people working to keep my sister alive. I vowed to NEVER take a drink of alcohol. And I never will and never have. Some people call me crazy and yes I realize Angela made a decision to get in the vehicle with people that had all been drinking heavily. But to me, drugs and alcohol took my sister from me. And took her away from her 3 very small children.
I have to admit I haven't seen my sister in years. In my mind it's easier to think that she's dead then to see her laying in a bed. Hooked to a feeding tube and wearing diapers. She can't talk, she doesn't know enough to talk. She doesn't know me. From the brain spasms her hands and feet have drawn up. It's hard to see her that way, that's not Angela laying there my mind keeps telling me. All these years I had let myself forget about her, because I just didn't want to deal with the reality, but these past few weeks going through her photos, the memories just flooded back. I have thought so many times... what would life be like today for all of us if she hadn't been in that wreck? Would I have somehow found myself partying, perhaps with her? Did this change my life? I also think of all the fun memories we would have made, just hanging out and shopping. She was such a go getter and always included me and my younger sister in everything. I really miss her....


I know I haven't posted an actual post in a loooonnnng time. But you can expect an update in the next couple of days.... Hope everyone is well

Misha