“It breaks my heart to be reminded of what we used to do and that she is no longer here to reminisce with me.”
Kristina is a self-proclaimed “desert rat ‘, born and raised in the city of Lancaster. When she was four years old, her sister was born.
My mother gave me plenty of opportunities to be involved as a big sister and to help out. I was able topick out her name (Sarah), the theme of my sister’s nursery room, and other things that we needed to buy for her. That made me extremely excited to have a younger sister.
Kristina didn’t take her role as Sarah’s big sister lightly. She took special care to protect her sister and to comfort her, even from an early age.
I was always very protective of her. My mother told me I would hear Sarah crying in her crib and I dropped anything I was doing to go tend to her. If my parents did not catch me in time, I would throw myself over her crib to go be with her.
As they grew older, the girls would play together with their cabbage patch dolls.
My sister and I both received Cabbage Patch dolls as Christmas gifts one year. They came with their own names, birth certificates, and backstories. It was so magical, and they really felt like our own babies. We fell deeply in love with our lifelike dolls.
As Kristina and Sarah grew older together, their dolls became an important outlet for comprehending and playing out the dramas of Sarah’s illness.
When Sarah was born, she was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, a fatal genetic condition where the lungs and digestive system become clogged with sticky mucus. My sister had to go to the hospital quite often because she would get so sick. Sarah would get IVs and shots and things that would hurt her, so we would make our dolls go to the pretend hospital and go through the same things. We gave them pretend IVs and shots and put gauze and Band-Aids on them, just like Sarah had.
That is the most concrete memory that the Cabbage Patch doll conjures for me. It was really good therapeutic play for my sister and I. I would play with toys and dolls up until junior high, just so I could play with my younger sister. I knew my time with her was limited, so I tried to make her laugh to make situations lighter.
Sarah passed away in the summer of 2015. She was 18 years old. Kristina keeps her Cabbage Patch doll — pictured above — as a token of the bond with her sister.
I feel like the Cabbage Patch Kid is a symbol of my role as a protector for her — to love her, to make her happy and help her try to forget everything else. It is a reminder that I did everything in my power to be an escape from her disease, to take her away and to forget all the bad things, if for a moment.
It is a reminder of our childhood together. It reminds me of having bunk beds, but still sleeping in the same bed together. But it also brings back painful reminders that she is not here with me, and I miss her so much. I know I cannot dwell on this pain, and I should be flooded with good memories, but I am still grieving and I probably will be grieving for the rest of my life.