Village life: She has an irrepressible hunger for joy

My sister, who's 10 years older than me, is suddenly very sick. The possibility of losing her — one of my two DNA mates, inimitable character in my life, a memorable, eccentric, adorable woman — is grabbing at my heart and gut and I dedicate this column to her.

I have written about her often. Here are two excerpts, both slightly modified from longer pieces that tell some of her story. The first is from a piece I wrote in my blog on her birthday two years ago. The second is from an essay titled Haywire that I published under a pseudonym in the fall, 2001 issue of Fourth Genre, recalling her visit with my first husband and me in 1999.

Champion Bell Ringer

She was born on the next to the last day of 1939 at the end of one of the worst years in the 20th century, yet she represented the start of our parents' creation of a family. They were painfully naive and awkwardly finding their way. Her birth was hard, and something happened that affected all the rest of her life — a cord around the neck maybe, a loss of oxygen — something from the struggle of that labor, my mother believed, made it hard for her to accomplish certain things.

Like her birth, her life also has been fraught. She is, according to her horoscope today in the Akron Beacon Journal, which she reads to me, "a stalwart pragmatist." She knows the word "stalwart" well enough to say it, but spells out "p-r-a-g-m-a-t-i-s-t," and seems to enjoy my description of what I think it means — strong and practical, sturdy in the world.

She took herself to Belgrade Gardens for her birthday — a Hungarian chicken restaurant in Barberton, Ohio, where she lives. Disappointed that this capacious family enterprise no longer serves wine, a treat she allocates for herself once or twice a year, she ordered Diet Coke and fish, which she said was too crusty and hard to eat.

But there was a bright spot.

Across from her, an unaccompanied gentleman watched her closely.

Finally he said, "Excuse me, ma'am, but were you a bell ringer for Salvation Army at the Norton Acme?"

She said indeed she was. She was a champion bell ringer this year. One day somebody wrote a check for $2,000 and said explicitly it should be added into the take of the woman he described as my sister two days before Christmas.

"Would you care to join me for dinner?" the gentleman said.

My sister said, "Yes, I would."

"I hear it's your birthday," the gentleman eventually said. "Would you allow me to buy you a piece of pie?"

"Sir, I'm very full already," my sister said.

But she told me it was coconut cream and it was delicious.

"And he paid for the pie," my sister says.

She and the gentleman sat there and talked — about world events, she says, and how things have changed since the 40s.

And then she came home, to her three cats and a four-pack of wine coolers in the frig — her treat for the holiday.

She wants to make sauerkraut and ribs for New Year's Eve, just for herself, and asks if I remember our mother's recipe. I don't offhand but look it up on Google, find one that sounds right, and read it to her over the phone. She writes it down, reading each item and instruction back precisely, as the cursor blinks congenially in front of me.

And our mother, long dead, is a loving presence between us.

Winning on Haywire

Reckless with vodka, we take my sister to a casino, the small one just outside St. Ignace. My sister's never gambled before and is heartily in favor. I have a slot machine "jones" (addiction) that my sister doesn't know about. My husband and I agree to divide our money between quarters and nickels, and I promise myself I'll stay on nickels with my sister.

We get five rolls, $10, pick up our plastic buckets and sit down side by side. I'm at a Red, White, and Blue Sevens machine, and she's at a Haywire.

She slowly puts the nickel in, presses the button, loses, puts it in, loses — again and again, maybe 10 times. She gambles as deliberately as she bowls, concentrating deeply.

Then she hits "Haywire" and the machine spins crazily and she gets double her money — 10 nickels. I show her how to cash out and the nickels clatter down.

She looks at me, wide-eyed and incredulous. "I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS," she yells. She scoops up the nickels and puts them in her bucket. She loses a bunch more times, then hits for two, then 10, then five, then many more losses, then a "Haywire" for 20.

Each time she wins, she cashes out, scoops up the take, and yells at me, "I CANNOT BELIEVE I GOT THAT!"

Eventually her seed money is gone, but she's got a little pile in the bucket. It is strange sitting here beside her, both of us victims of chance. My losses neatly parallel her gains. Almost all our lives, it has been exactly the opposite. I have always prospered while she flailed, it seems to me, yet she has never lost her irrepressible hunger for joy.

Maybe there's a deity after all, not random but capricious. A pestering melancholy invades me. I lose all my nickels and sneak away from my sister's side and lose a roll of quarters. I recognize her rapt absorption and know she won't see that I've gone.

My husband hits 375 quarters, and is ready to cash out, sipping a beer. We retrieve my sister, who's all asparkle. We go to the cashier's window.

Ahead of my sister people cash out for $70, $48, $225. She steps up. The little pile tinkles into the machine. She gets a five-dollar bill and 30 cents.

"I CANNOT BELIEVE I WON THIS," my sister exclaims to the cashier. "THIS IS REALLY GREAT!"

She begins to tell her whole story, that she's never gambled, that she didn't even feel guilty, that she might frame this five dollar bill.

The cashier smiles and smiles, but looks over my sister's shoulder at the waiting line, and my husband and I have to drag my sister away.

So, here's to you, Connie my beloved. Here's to hitting "Haywire" and getting a pile of crazy luck.

It could happen.

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Columnist and Poet Jan Worth-Nelson has lived within walking distance of East Village Magazine since 1981. Her 2006 Peace Corps novel, Night Blind, is widely available. You can find her essays, fiction and poetry on her web site, www.janworth.com and her blog, http://nightblindblog.blogspot.com/index.htm. She is the interim director of the Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching and teaches writing at UM-Flint.