Are you her sister?

No I am not.

So how do you get information from a hospital when you are not a blood relative? I have found that you don't. Unless you spend 16 hours straight in the hospital room with your friend with only one other visitor besides yourself coming in and that person being limited on time. You DO NOT leave when the doctors come in AND you stay while the nurses aids are "aiding." YOU make the ice tea "medium brown 2 sugars" and YOU ask and answer questions for the person who is in lying in the bed before you unable to form a complete thought or if able to, they are still unable to communicate it...Until they are able to communicate it for themselves. You spend the time repeating what the doctor says to them in front of the doctor so you and they will MAYBE remember it, and when the doctor says "where were we" after an interruption, you tell him---"we were here."

You repeat over and over again to various people, "No I am not. I am her Best Friend of 15 years." You repeat (not as many times as the afore mentioned ***Thank goodness**** NO we don't live together!" You politely laugh when they say, "If it had been 16 years, you could stay, but we'll have to ask you to leave" and then you smile a lot and say "Thank you, just one more question."

Am I her sister? No I am not her biological sister. But I am as close to my sisters as I find most women to be, we talk regularly on the phone and they are the women I think to call and ask to pray for me. We give each other advice and share when we are down and have tons of fun and fights when we are together. With all that I still have shared more life experiences with jadee then my own sisters. Certainly more then she's shared with her own sister.

She does not have family the way most of us know family to be and she is sad for that and I am sad for that. I guess because of the way my parents were with me, I was able to meet her, become friends and take on a role that doesn't not quiet fit any regular title. I have been a jack-0f-all-trades to her through different phases of her life. I have played the following roles: mom, sister, friend, pain in the butt, and person who valued her input and insight too. We've grown up together. We've fought, we've laughed, we've cried.

I am not her sister, and I don't know if the hospital will talk to me when I call to check on her when I finally leave St. Louis or not. But I am someone who will continue to be what she needs, when she needs it because that's what she does for me. We've kicked each other, gently pulled each other along and prodded each other into spiritual and mental and physical health and growth, we've done it for 15 years now almost and I imagine and hope that we're blessed enough to do it for a lot more then that to come, God willing.

Am I her sister? Nope.