Remembering Phyllis

My sister Phyllis was the best person I've ever known. She was eight when I was born and took her spot as the baby of the family. I don't think she was too thrilled about that, but as the years passed, we became very close. She married young, had Janna a few years later, divorced a couple of years after that, and then she moved back home with Janna when I was about sixteen. I remember thinking she was the best mom I had ever witnessed. Her every move kept Janna in mind. I remember my parents having to tell her that she needed to go out and have a social life. She went to work at Tinker and made a good living for herself and Janna. Later she bought a home in Tecumseh and settled in to thinking that she would always be a single mom.
Boy did things change. After we moved to Wellston, we met Fred Coulson, the industrial arts teacher. Fred was also divorced and a single dad. We introduced them and then let them handle the rest. It took a couple of years, but soon they married, Phyllis and Janna moved to Wellston, and Marty and Monty moved in with their dad. All of the sudden Phyllis had three kids. They lived in a tiny two bedroom trailer while Fred and Tony built their house. I tried to cook a meal at my house and take it to their house every evening so that Tony and Fred could work. That was a long, drawn-out process, but they survived. They came in and stayed with us for a couple of weeks. I can't remember today why, but I remember all of us trying to get ready for school with one bathroom. That was quite an experience.
Later, we stayed with them while our water was off when our kitchen was being remodeled. Believe me our kids were much happier about these sleepovers than any of us, but we made it.
After the house was built, life settled in to 4-H, Ag, basketball, FHA, softball...do you see the trend? All of their life was wrapped around their kids. There were some really rocky times, but they came out on the other side a family of great love and faith.
When Carson was born, Phyllis fell immediately in love. She adored Jason and Allison, but for some reason (maybe it was her age) she couldn't get enough of Carson. She visited after work every chance she got and would just sit and rock him, spoil him, and love him.
It was only two years later that Evan was born. It all became clear; she was practicing being a Granny on Carson. By the time Evan was here, she was a pro at spoiling a kid. She continued in that capacity through Chelsea, Cortney, McKinley, Halle, Savana, Maddox, and if she had lived, McCoy. I still get angry when I think of her life being cut short by pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease caused by exposure to chemicals at Tinker Field. Her grandkids were all so young and should have had many, many years of being loved by their granny.
During her extended illness, she suffered so much but kept her sense-of-humor and faith. She became so strong in the Lord and many times would comfort us because she knew how much emotional pain her illness caused us.
When I think of her sense-of-humor, I remember her getting tickled. She would get so tickled that she couldn't talk at all. The funny thing is that she and I could get tickled together just remembering one of those times. Once we were driving down the road, and I looked at her and realized that one of her lenses was out of her sunglasses. She was completely oblivious to the fact, so I got tickled, then she got tickled. We could never tell that story to anyone without losing full control. I guess you had to be there.
During her illness Phyllis repeated the verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I never see that verse without thinking of her valiant battle for life.
A couple of years before her death, Fred took her to Graceland. Now I had been a couple of times and was glad to go, but to Phyllis Graceland was very special. She was an Elvis fan to the core. She stumbled and fell and hurt her arm before she got to go in, but like the trooper she was, she went in anyway. All of her pictures show her holding her arm and smiling. Later that night she went to the ER and found out that her arm was broken. Prednisone had weakened her bones and made her vulnerable to breaks.
There's so much more I could say about her, but I'd have to write a book to pay the kind of tribute to her that I feel is appropriate.
If my mom is the voice in my head, Phyllis is the amen to that voice. She left a void in so many lives when she died.
I was with her when Dr. Huff told her that she wasn't going to leave the hospital. She was so courageous; I asked her if she was scared. She shook her head. No she wasn't scared, she was going to get to see Mom.
I've never know anyone who hung on to life so hard; most people would have been bitter and angry, but she wasn't. She could do all things through Christ who strengthened her.