THE MIDSUMMER SNOWSTORM

The changing of the leaves with the cycle of the seasons has always been a marvel of nature that sparks intrigue and awe in my mind. The way tender green leaves brighten, wither and sprout with the natural clock of Mother Earth is fascinating, and also comforting in a way. It’s a gentle reminder of the flow of life: that there will always be a withering, an ending, a dying. That after every balmy summer there’s a gloomy autumn. That each soft, healthy petal on the flower will eventually darken, harden, and crack. And no matter how much you long to bask a moment longer in the lovely midsummer warmth, the shadows will begin to lengthen on the sidewalks and nature’s whispering clock will tick noiselessly and the winter cold will inch up your sleeves without warning. Then, there is nothing to do but wait out the blistering chill until the soft spring rains begin to fall.

My sister was a spring baby. She was born in April, during that time when the heavy showers begin to fade away and the sun glows bright and golden in the afternoons. I was four at the time, and thrilled to have a little sister. Finally, I would have someone to play dress up with, someone to act out my other dolls, and someone to take my side when mom was angry at me. This fantasy consumed my daily life. I spent hours planning lists of activities to do once she came home: hair braiding, coloring, playing hide and seek, etc. Clearly, I had forgotten that babies couldn’t run or braid hair, but none of that mattered to me. At the ripe age of four, the arrival of my sister seemed like what I had been waiting for my whole life and nothing was going to ruin it.

On the first warm night of that year, my mom’s water broke. For me, the experience was a slow-motion blur of panic, ambulance wails and flashing red and blue lights while I stood frozen in the corner. At that age, all I understood was that something was definitely wrong; later, I would realize that my sister had come unexpectedly early. When my mom, dad, and grandma rushed to the hospital, I was left at home with my grandpa. Shock quickly gave way to worry, as I feared that something was wrong with my sister. Naively, I wondered if she disliked me and didn’t want to see me. Was that it? All night, I tossed and turned, anticipating the morning light.

The next day, my dad came home and told me that everything went well, and if I wanted, he could bring me to the hospital to see my sister. I was so overcome with relief and exuberance that I broke into tears on the spot. I painstakingly chose my finest stuffed animals and storybooks to present to my sister, who was named Annabelle. And when I saw her for the first time, a tiny twitching body swaddled in downey hospital blankets, I couldn’t help my eyes from glistening and my heart from thumping nervously. I held her for the first time, with the utmost care and adoration, as the fresh spring winds wafted in through the windows and the tulips grinned brightly from clay pots on the bedside table. She blinked in confusion, turned her head this way and that, and burst into tears. She was perfect.

Annabelle comes home a few weeks later, and everything is suddenly brighter. She is just a squishy, squirming little bundle of life with no worry, and the simplicity of the vivid life, and energy radiating off of her tiny swaddle of blankets pervades every room of the house. I spent every minute I could by her side, just watching her sleep or blink or cry. I couldn’t dress her up or play dolls with her just yet, but it didn’t matter to me. Even as the air warmed and the summer humidity began filtering through the windows, I didn’t even think of playing outside. Even as the charming sun beckoned and the neighborhood kids screamed in the sprinklers, I was planted firmly by Annabelle’s crib, watching her little eyelids flutter as she dreamed. My sister never cried at night; in fact, she was a strangely composed baby and my mom was constantly envied for it.

We never saw the signs.

A few months later, on a hot midsummer night, my mom went to check on Annabelle in the middle of the night. All was silent, per usual. Out of a pure whim, my mother bends over to hold Annabelle. As she does, her ear passes Annabelle’s chest, and it’s hollow and silent. So silent. In a rapid flurry, calls are made and the ambulance is booked and clothes are packed sloppily into dirty gym bags. My mom is sobbing and frantic while my dad is mechanically moving in stiff, controlled motions. And just like that spring evening a few months ago, I am frozen in place, watching the commotion with trepidation.

The seasons are supposed to move in a cyclical, consistent pattern. The circle of time is perpetual and dependable. Yet, in the middle of summer, it seemed like a blizzard of snow had rushed into my home, blanketing it with that humming, uncertain silence that lingers after a heavy snowstorm. This storm had truly shaken the shingles off the house and displaced each brick on the wall, leaving me feeling empty and vulnerable, confused and staggering. This was the first time I saw my dad, a man I’d previously thought invincible, with such visceral, panicked fear on his face. This was the first time I saw my mom cry, although it would be far from the last. This was the first time the house I considered home was completely noiseless, the first time I climbed into bed alone, the first time I realized no one had the answers to my questions. The rug had been pulled from underneath my feet, and the world had wobbled on its axis.

At the time, I never really knew what was happening. All I understood was that I would have to stay in daycare until sundown, and that my parents couldn’t show up to my piano concerts or ballet performances, that hospital pudding would become a regular meal, and that Annabelle was in danger. Real, real danger. The type of danger that made my mom shake with racking sobs every night, the type of danger that kept my dad at the hospital at all times, the type of danger that my grandparents would whisper on the phone about to their relatives in China.

In short, my sister was experiencing kidney failure. Due to genetic malfunctions, her kidneys were defective from birth and unable to filter waste from her body. Because we discovered this so late, the waste had been building up in her blood, slowing down nerve and brain functions, weakening her immune system and pushing her into Death’s gentle arms. As soon as she entered the hospital, we filed a kidney transplant request. Somehow, in a complete miracle, we received a kidney within a few days, matched through blood and tissue typing, and Annabelle was cleared to undergo her life-changing transplant surgery. This included three to four hours under general anesthesia, an incision on her lower abdomen, and a kidney connection to her bladder and blood vessels. The kidney began working almost automatically. And so, as the first leaves fell from the tree branches, my sister was wheeled out of the Operating Room.

The realization of the normalcy of death to a four-year-old girl is a brutal slap in the face, a painful derealization of what I thought I knew about life. Most importantly, it involved my sister. The person I had been waiting for my whole life, the vibrant, golden spring baby, full of effervescence and hope. It was impossible to picture her dead: her soft little body buried under crumbly soil and soggy copper leaves. She was just here, just a few months ago, in my arms, blinking her long eyelashes and squirming in her snuggly blankets and yet, when I finally visited her after her surgery, there she was, hooked up to tubes and IVs and drips and pumped full of medication and steroids and fluids, more machine than girl, smaller than I ever remembered, frail and delicate like wisps of dandelion, like she could float away at any second. It felt so cruel and wrong and brutal that I couldn’t even look at her through my tearful eyes. I truly believe that on that gray autumn afternoon, I felt what it was like to look Death right in the eyes.

A few months later, in school, I learned about the seasonal cycle: how leaves grow and flourish and wither and die, how the seasons bloom and shine and falter and freeze, how the cycle circles around and around and around. This reminded me of my sister’s surgery and of my newfound knowledge of human mortality. Somehow, the idea of the changing of the seasons filled me with hope. It’s true that time does not stop or wait for humans. Leaves get sick and brown and crack, flowers wither and droop and crumble, trees moan and groan and collapse. During times like these, it may seem hopeless to even look forward to the future. It may seem fruitless to even imagine a gleaming summer day when the bitter frost bites at your skin. On those fateful days after Annabelle’s surgery, that’s exactly what it felt like: hopeless and dark like the sun would never appear again. And yet, right on schedule, by next spring, the flowers and leaves will be thriving and vibrant, swaying amongst the birds and the bees in nature’s grand symphony. And in the midst of all that noise, a little girl is dancing through a field of daisies, holding her giggling baby sister in her arms.

Annabelle had a successful surgery and is now a healthy, thriving, sassy twelve year old. She got the tubes removed, one by one, over the course of a decade. Her last tube, in her stomach, was removed this summer; this was a huge deal because it meant she could swim and go into the ocean without fear of contamination. She now lives a somewhat normal life, attending art classes and pool parties and basketball practices alongside her daily doses of immunosuppressant medicines and monthly clinic visits and weekly steroid shots. And I was never able to play dolls with her or hide and seek, but I can still braid her hair and pick petty fights over who gets to wear which shirt. Fortunately, my adoration and love for her do not prevent us from having frivolous sisterly arguments, which leave my mom exasperated.

But it’s still better to see her exasperated than to see her crying.

It’s still strange and terrifying to think about the surgery and the night she was rushed to the hospital, and somehow the memories have blurred as the years have passed. The fact that I am forgetting some of the most crucial moments of my childhood is proof that time is still churning ever forward. Time does not wait for us, and it never will. Fall will inevitably circle back around, and with it, the unforgiving winter. Kidney transplants are fickle and can expire without warning. Her immune system can reject the kidney at any time and it would just immediately stop working. We never really know what to expect. But we take it day by day, knowing that the promise of a warm spring breeze is just around the corner.