AIR COOLERS PRICE

(Photo taken May 24, 2009 as Gale (L) and I finished planting our gigantic Garden o' Doom)

One of my earliest memories of my sister Gale is her tying me up in a sheet so I couldn't get into trouble while she was babysitting me. For years, I couldn't go into the basement by myself without my skin crawling with dread from her tales of the Basement Monster. As a teenager, I sometimes feared opening the attic doors at the sides of my bedroom. Gale and Tammy used to have that room, and Gale made sure I knew all about the horrors that awaited me if I tried to sneak upstairs with them at night.

She was good at brat control. She was good at a lot of things, including being a lot of different people.

She was kind of like a brother. She taught Tammy and I the subtle art of climbing on your sibling's face and expelling gas (we were apparently very good practice subjects). She taught me how to (mostly) keep a straight face at the adult bookstore. She taught me how to make my 1970 Nova do donuts in the snow in the UD Arena parking lot. She also taught me how to pull that 1970 Nova OUT of a donut, so I'd always be safe driving on snow and ice. Now, if only she'd been able to teach me how to get out of speeding tickets...

Gale was a sister. Even though it was just me, Gale and Tammy growing up together, as soon as she got the chance to know her half siblings on her father's side, Gale leapt in head first. The same when Tammy started to get to know her half siblings. Gale welcomed them all into her heart whether they were a half or a quarter or a sixteenth. If you were so much as a bud on a tiny branch of our family tree, Gale had your back the minute you came into her life.

Gale was a friend beyond compare. At the hospital, we held vigil with friends from her childhood, like Denise and Shona, and friends from adulthood, like Randy and Jim. They were there, no question, because she had given them her all at one time or another. They were ready to give it back.

Gale was a mother. She never had children of her own, so she raised anyone who looked like they could use a little mothering. When I was in my 20's, I needed a place to live on short notice, and she gave it to me. When Dustin was in his teens, she moved him in with her, too. She looked after her employees so well that kids she used to work with at Cassanos came to visit her in ICU. She cared so much for her pets that she grieved them like she'd given birth to them and sacrificed things she wanted in favor of taking in just one more animal in need of a home. She's got 23 cats – or is it 26? It's been hard to keep count sometimes.

Gale was a wife. She married young, and although that didn't work out, she never gave up hope of having another go at it. She had a few "almosts," and one of those "almosts" was at the hospital with us. Which says as much about her relationship with them as it does about her relationship with her husband Alan, who not only tolerated it, but was friends with him. Gale and Alan didn't always have smooth sailing – you have to be tough and passionate to hold your own with Gale – but they weathered the storms together and found their way to the altar. He was at her side the whole time she was in ICU, rubbing her feet, cajoling her to wake up, or – and, Alan, I'm sorry, but I will never forget this – begging her to fart, just to show that her body was rebounding. THAT is love.

Gale was a daughter. Polio didn't beat Mom, but it did a number on her lower body, so when her hip and knee started giving out, Gale didn't so much as bat an eye. She moved Mom in with her and made sure she was well cared for. She would do things like leave coolers full of drinks by Mom's favorite chair so she wouldn't have to struggle to get up while Gale was at work. Although she'd never been close with her biological father, Gale was there for him when his time came to an end. It fell to her to make the decision to turn off the machines. She cussed, she got angry, but when it came down to the wire, she did the right thing.

On her last day alive, even though she had been sick, Gale went to check on our sister Tammy, who was also sick. The last text I ever got from Gale was one checking if I could bring the punch supplies for our family Christmas dinner, because you could always count on Gale to feed a platoon. She put so much of herself out there to care for others, and just maybe, that's why God took her from us this week. He felt it was time for Gale to rest, and he knew she was stubborn enough that it could only happen one way. On Monday, just like Gale had done for her father, we freed her from the machines and let her go.

One thing she told me more than once was that she didn't want us to grieve when she died; she wanted a party, not a funeral. Well, Sis, I'm afraid funerals are for the living, but I'm going to make sure you get your party after we've had a some time to grieve and to settle

My former roommate Bridget had my scrapbook (hostage! captive! prisoner!) in Chicago since 2003 and I just got it back.

This book, as she said in her note to me when she mailed it back, is full of "priceless photographs and unforgettable memories." It's hard to believe this was 10 years ago and it's hard to believe we survived all of it!

All those inside jokes and quotes are silly and I don't remember half of them, but it started because our freshman year, when we all lived in Emerson Hall, we would shout "Quote Box!" whenever one of us said or did something really funny. We in fact had a quote box where we would write funny quotes and inside jokes down and file them away. On our last night of school freshman year, before moving day, our RA bought us wine coolers and we sat in my room and opened the quote box. We took turns reading them aloud and we, of course, had to take a drink every time one was read. Bridget got drunk way too quickly and Kim and I made her stay at the dorm while she and I went Uptown with her then boyfriend. I kissed some guy I had a crush on outside of First Run. That's about all I remember.

So for the next three years my scrapbook served as our Quote Box and it's all here in Crayola Magic Marker, assuring I will never be President.