Making Lemonade
Making Lemonade I am the baby in our family and ever since I can remember, I knew that I had a sister who was born and died before my brothers and I were born. I don't know how we all knew or how my parents managed to tell us about their massive personal tragedy. There were no pictures on the walls of Elyse, no keepsakes around for my parents to look at. That was just too painful for them. There was a little suitcase with a few of her things, but it was hidden away in the basement. Her short life was just a fact that we grew up with. It wasn't until many years later that I could have some understanding of the terrible loss my parents had to go through and at such early ages (my mother was 22 and my father was 25 when she died). I thought to myself, how could they go through that, remain sane and go on to having 3 more children? My grandfather, for whom my mother was very close, died when I was 3 months old. This, too was such an overwhelming loss for my mother. I don'