Your Soul Is Multi-Colored

And in my mind, you live on as a dragon,

breathing crimson fire

on any who deign to bully or belittle

those of us born different.

Although you departed this life

nearly 12 years ago

your soul is still aflame.

My beloved sister, my savior and my inspiration.

I will never forget

your unique and multi-faceted beauty

that far transcended that of glossy-covered magazine models.

It was apparent to all those with true inner sight,

your genius and your wit,

and your gift for turning tragedy to comedy.

When you sprouted a sizable auburn beard at age 14,

you were labeled as a "freak" and a "queer",

but I just saw you-

the most wise and loyal sister in the world.

Our English and Latin teachers also saw you for yourself,

and took you to a Wagner concert at age 15.

When you would blast "March of the Valkyries" from our old LP,

as a mere child of six,

I could feel the power of the colors

emanating from the music.

I can imagine your determined 10 year-old face

the first time you saved my life

from our dysfunctional, selfish, drug-addicted parents.

I was 18 months old, and ran laughing

into the sparkling turquoise waves in Jamaica,

slicing my foot open on a piece of poisonous coral.

As you observed the thin, blood-red line

ascending swiftly towards my heart

I picture your wild auburn hair

and fierce green eyes blazing with rage and fear.

You repeatedly slapped the faces of our parents,

cursing at them to regain consciousness,

as they lay prostrate on the white sand

passed out from tequila, acid, peyote and primo pot.

Finally screaming at them as they groggily awoke:

"Your baby is going to DIE if you don't get her to a hospital NOW!

She has blood poisoning!"

You saved my life then, and on countless occasions thereafter.

When the evening ritual of violence began in our household,

you always made sure I was safely tucked beneath the mahogany table,

the chairs pulled in tight around me for protection.

I huddled up and softly sang Simon and Garfunkel's "I Am a Rock" to myself,

as the fists flew and furniture smashed and bright red drops of blood

sprang up beneath our mom's feet

as she purposefully ground them into shards of broken glass,

cursing and screaming like the hell cat she is.

I pretended I was anywhere else, while you heroically fought my battles for me.

During the calm and peaceful afternoons,

the two of us roaming through the shadow-laced woods,

I remember you like the bright spring green

of newly unfurling fiddlehead ferns.

They were one of the many edible plants indigenous to New England

that you taught me to forage for,

to help assuage my constant hunger,

back when mom was starving us.

I vividly recall the flame-red color of mom's face,

her temper as vicious and as liable to leave permanent scars as fire,

the day you told her you were gay.

I was seven and you were 16.

I knew what it meant to be gay-

you had always told me honestly

that you felt like you were born into the wrong body,

and ahould have been a boy.

Nowadays you would have been transgender,

but in the early 1980's, that wasn't a widely recognized option.

Our hypocritical, cult-addled mom screamed at you that she forbid you to be gay.

You replied calmly and reasonably

that she couldn't forbid something you had no control over.

Then, more hysterical by the moment, she said:

"I'll beat it out of you!"

You stopped her fists in mid-air and said:

"I'm bigger than you are now. You'll never beat me again."

Then, with the most searing contempt possible, she hissed:

"If these were biblical times, you would have been destroyed at Sodom and Gomorrah. I wish you had died at birth."

Then she kicked her 16 year-old daughter out onto the streets.

Being the resilient and inventive individual you always were,

you got a job and a room in a rooming house,

graduated high school with high honors,

achieving the highest verbal score in the State of New Hampshire for that year on the SAT's,

and went on to a liberal arts college.

But after a year, you organized a group of about 8 other gay women,

and all moved put to San Francisco together.

I didn't know at the time that the rainbow flag

had first been flown in San Francisco

as a demonstration of gay rights

a year after my birth.

It seems fitting in retrospect.

In my mind, you were always as brilliant as the brightest rainbow.

Others thought so, too.

While still a teenager, you were interviewed on NPR

about what it was like growing up

and learning how to survive,

in such a dysfunctional household as ours.

You became a stand up comic,

with your uncanny knack for finding humor and irony

in even the most tragic of your life experiences.

You had two of your cartoons published in The New Yorker,

became a fierce advocate for the homeless,

and had a documentary made about your life by a friend in California

that won a film featival award.

The first time we saw Wicked in Boston,

I turned to my husband, who had never had the chance to meet you,

and exclaimed: "This is the story of my sister's life! So kind and intelligent,

but always vilified for being different. I wish I could see this with her!"

That wish came true three months before your death from pancreatic cancer.

A friend from college in New Hampshire found you blue-lipped, soaking wet and very ill,

homeless, and sleeping on the heat vents

below the steps of The Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.

Apparently the fire department would come through every night

and turn their hoses on the homeless sleeping there,

to make way for the well-dressed, paying patrons.

She took you to her own oncologist, and called me the next day.

My husband and I dropped everything and flew out to spend a week with you.

After the first day, spent laughing and catching up on two decades

since we had last met in person,

harmonizing on the folk songs you had taught me as a child,

and letting you lead us through your favorite redwood forest, never once complaining of pain,

my husband paid me the highest compliment of my life.

He said: "It's amazing. For having spent only seven years in the same home, you two are almost identical in your optimism and ability to laugh at your early trauma, and your philosophy on life.

Even your singing voices are the same."

His words filled me with a warm, rosy joy.

The night before we had to fly home,

the three of us entered The Orpheum as paying guests,

having managed to get the last three seats together to see Wicked.

As we sat there, hands clasped tight,

watching the beautiful, misunderstood, emerald actor sing her famous song,

you and I were quietly singing "Defying Gravity" along with her,

tears streaming from our green eyes, our auburn heads bent close together.

That was the last time I saw you on this side of life,

and the way I always remember you.

Although I had helped arrange for a nice hospice near the end,

and had a flight out to California the next morning...

it came too late.

Your friend from colege called me on her way to the hospice and told me it was time.

She put me on the phone to you, and, sobbing continuously,

I thanked you for all your life lessons and told you how much you had changed me,

and every single person who had ever met you, for good.

I told you I would always love you, and that you were going to Valhalla to run through the fields with your long gone black lab.

The hospice nurse got on the phone and said:

"She can't talk, but I know she can hear you. She's trying to smile."

Then you took your last breath.

Gone at 41.

Your ashes reside in a black ceramic vase carved with dragons,

and in the gardens I designed, verdant with multi-colored flora and fauna,

rests a grey cement dragon sculpture in your honor, visible from my kitchen window, even through the gales of winter white.

If I could nominate you for anything, it would be this:

"The most compassionate, resilient and non-judgmental individual I ever met."

And in the memories of all who knew you, I'm sure that's how you're fondly remembered.

My shining, multi-colored sister,

of boundless inner beauty and wit, your open mind and enduring soul-

your colors will live on as long as we remember you.