Chapter 40

LINDA: I was 16 months old when Cindy was born, and I think I had just been waiting for my other half — my younger twin, I called her — to arrive before I got on with life.

Blue-eyed and blonde, she grew quickly, as babies do, and I — dark-eyed, dark-haired — kind of lagged behind, as if waiting for her to catch up. We wore the same size clothes most of our lives.

I was sick a lot, and underweight (a problem I’d envy later in life), and Daddy once told me he was worried I wouldn’t live to see five birthdays. But I did and, despite our move to Minnesota, where I had a cold all winter every winter, survived to adulthood. (If you hadn’t guessed.)

When we lived in Wichita, Cindy and I had a great time making mud pies in our backyard, which was mostly dirt.  We tried eating them, spit them out — but not soon enough. We both got pinworms!  I won’t elaborate, but suffice it to say the treatment isn’t pleasant.  It also left us both with damaged intestines so we were anemic most of our lives.  At least that’s what the doctor told Mother.

Actually, we both got sick a lot. Flu, colds, strep throat, and other childhood ailments hounded us until we grew up — and, for Cindy, all her life. Especially after we moved to Minnesota, it seemed like one of us was sick all winter long.

We often got sick together. By happenstance, sharing a bed, or because of the special bond between us, we often were snuggled in our lumpy double bed and took turns fetching Kleenex or rubbing each other’s backs with Ben-Gay. I’d read to Cindy, who made me read the Sunday funnies to her until we were in high school. We’d make clothes for our paper dolls or play with the button box.

Mother would bring us hot lemonade (for sore throats and congestion), Pepto-Bismol (which we hated), or beef bouillon and Bubble Up soda (post-stomach flu). We loved the sweet-tart taste of St. Joseph Aspirin for Children and sometimes feigned illness to get one. Mother quickly figured out that game.

When our tummies weren’t involved, or on healthy but snowbound days, we indulged in heavily creamed and sugared coffee and piles of lavishly buttered toast. It was a treat we loved.

We endured the childhood diseases (now almost wiped out by vaccines) such as measles, mumps, and chicken pox.  Chicken pox itched like mad, and we were slathered with calamine lotion. Mumps were the worst because it was hard to eat anything, and I got lucky — I got them twice! Full on mumps when I was about seven and again when I was seventeen — how embarrassing to miss ten days of high school for mumps, of all things.

In high school, Cindy got mononucleosis.  Everybody called it “the kissing disease,” so she got a lot of ribbing about that.

My first year of college, I got a horrible case of whooping cough — probably drove my roommate nuts the last month or so of the term. When I got home for the summer, I was so sick, I only weighed about 100 pounds and coughed constantly.  Mother finally took me to a doctor, who gave me this really strong cough syrup — it was black and it had codeine in it.  I slept for about two weeks before I came through it.

After I got married and moved to Colorado, I was much healthier.  But Cindy, who moved to Alaska as an adult, was not so lucky.

CINDY: It seems as if we were sick a lot in the winters (school) but quite healthy in the summers (no school). Makes you wonder, eh? I, too, had my share of colds, flu, mumps, and bumps! I loved it when Mother would make us chicken noodle soup and bring it up to us in bed. My husband calls me “the runt of the litter” because I get sick so easily, and so often. But I also recover quickly, so I guess that’s the silver lining. I actually don’t think Dale, our younger brother, or Andrea, our older sister got sick very often, so it had something to do with Linda and I.

I also broke a lot of things. My arms a few times. My collarbone. Fractured a vertebra in my back. Broke a finger now and then. I think I sprained my wrists, but didn’t break them. Let’s just say I was not, and am not, very coordinated.

After I left home and eventually moved to Alaska, I continued to get the strangest illnesses. I was once hospitalized, and almost died, from a severe throat infection (the same thing that killed George Washington). But today, at 76, I seem to be healthier than I have ever been. Go figure.