My sister was a miracle.
I was told the first time she almost died from sickle cell, she was just two years old. I don’t remember that, but I do remember us being very young and her disappearing for long periods of time. One time I threw such a fit, I was admitted into the hospital, so we didn’t have to be separated. I remember we were in cribs, in the same room at the old Coatesville Hospital.
When she was a little older, my young mind still couldn’t wrap itself around why she would disappear with our grandmother. We had this way of holding conversation with each other when we were really little, where we would lay down, put our feet together, and bicycle them. One of those times, I asked her and she told me that she had gone to this place where she went on an elevator and they put her in a room with a television, there was a McDonalds there. She had these ladies coming in and giving her trays of food and juice whenever she wanted. (I eventually came to realize this was CHOP) I couldn’t understand why I didn’t get to go to this special place, so I asked our Grandmother and that is when she first explained to me, the best she could that my sissy had sickle cell. The doctors told our grandmother that Bert’s disease was so bad that she wouldn’t live beyond her 5th birthday. I was there for her 6th birthday. Then they told her that Bert wouldn’t live beyond her 12th birthday, yet we celebrated her 13th birthday in 1988. There were countless nights of my grandmother on her knees praying (yes, on her knees, I witnessed it). Bert slept in my grandmothers bed because of my grandmothers fear of losing her in the night. There were years of bedside vigils, hospital admissions, prayers at the alter, prayers in the hospital, and pain medications. Blood transfusions, etc. It never hindered Bert from living the life she wanted.
Bert loved deep and hard. She was feisty and had a mouth on her that would make you want to slap the taste out (l actually tried to). She was a good listener. She was a good friend. She was a good adviser. She was a giver. She loved to love people, and she loved to care for people even when she herself was in pain. She was strong. She knew how to push beyond her physical limits and tap into her spirit. She could care less about her appearance, life was- just too short to fuss over such things.
Despite being labeled as a “severe sickler” which meant over 95% of the red blood cells in her body were sickled. Bert traveled internationally, creating theater with our father. She worked hard in helping to make opportunities and spaces for people of different cultural backgrounds to gather with the common goal of gaining understanding and respect for each other through her work as a co-founder of the Coatesville Cultural Society. She loved cooking and would feed anyone who was hungry. She loved hanging out with the children and didn’t mind playing games with them, doing their hair, or taking them to amusement parks. She gave birth to five children and breastfed every one of them.
It is hard for me to think that she lost her life. The truth is she LIVED her life far beyond what anyone expected or imagined. Even still, our hearts were broken on July 5th, 2002, when she returned home to our Ancestors.
So, this date, each year, for the past 22 years. I open my eyes, and I remember fondly the life of my very first and forever best friend.
I take comfort in her last words to me “I will never leave you, Sissy.” Now I know this to be true! Egbe mi, love is stronger. You always knew.
May you rest in power with our ancestors, my dearest sister, Roberta Denise. I am forever grateful for our connection and our time together on this side. We will one day dance together again
Ifayinka 