By Nancy Patrick

On Saturday, July 12, my husband and I hosted a memorial reception to honor my late sister, Peggy Smith Burkman, who died Jan. 10. Because of complex relationships in her life, the family had postponed the celebration to honor her. In spite of the delay, I think all who attended experienced a time of understanding and healing.

I wrote a reflective essay about my sister shortly after her death (And Now I Am One). That piece explains much about the issues my sister dealt with throughout her life. Despite those difficulties, Peggy’s family and many friends loved her.

My twin nephews, Kevin and Keith Burkman, who both live and work in the metroplex, helped me plan and host the weekend to honor my sister’s life. The family had to delay the celebration because of complications resulting from my sister’s divorce seventeen years ago when she divorced her husband of thirty-five years. This divorce created awkward situations for the family for the remainder of her life.

Peggy had been an obese woman until she underwent weight-loss surgery and lost about half of her body weight. This transformation completely changed her personality. She suddenly felt attractive and desirable. Her behavior caused much confusion and pain within our family.

Not only did her sons feel baffled by her sudden change in self-image, but also my brother-in-law who had been a faithful and supportive husband for thirty-five years couldn’t understand her abandonment of their marriage.

No one in the family has training as a mental health professional, so we didn’t know how to account for her new lifestyle. She began dressing immodestly, going out to clubs, meeting new friends, and deciding that her current marriage was boring and stale.

Summing up the next five to seven years of her life requires few words. She married one of her new friends, and they had a lot of fun until her health began to deteriorate. During those years, her sons, her parents, and the rest of her family kept in touch with her, but relationship breaks of the sort our family experienced create irreparable damage.

My brother-in-law suffered untold stress and emotional pain before finally finding another woman who has been a supportive spouse to him for fifteen years. My sister’s new marriage strained her relationship with her sons as they tolerated her new husband, but her choices created permanent fissures in the entire family.

As I mentioned earlier, my sister’s health began deteriorating about seven years ago. Not only did she develop dementia, but she began suffering falls and broken bones related to her osteoporosis. Other health problems created a need for regular, frequent, and varied medical attention.

Her new husband made himself unavailable to provide either the time or attention my sister needed. She began to realize that she had made some grievous mistakes after her surgery. She realized too late that she couldn’t change her past. She wanted to have her old life back, but alas, that life was gone.

Her sons, my husband, and I tried to fill the gap in her medical care; however, the fact of her having a husband made him her legal next-of-kin, thus having power of attorney. He had the authority to decide how much treatment he would allow her to have. 

During the last four years of Peggy’s life, she declined sharply, tragically, cruelly, and painfully. With discretion, I will say that my sister should have been in a skilled nursing facility for at least three years. Because her husband refused to cooperate with the family, her sons finally stepped in and physically removed their mother from the home and took her straight to the hospital.

She was dying. She suffered from dehydration, malnutrition, and advanced clostridioides difficile (c. diff). She weighed 88 pounds and died a few days after being admitted to the hospital. I will never erase from my memory the images of my sister’s last days. 

My purpose in detailing my sister’s life is not to disparage her but to applaud the reactions of her family and friends after her death. Her husband simply disappeared, made no decisions, and never called any of the family; however, the family did the opposite.

We rallied around each other and remained steadfast in our love for my sister. Her sons had her body cremated and her ashes stored in a beautiful and tasteful urn. One of them kept that urn in his home for the six months after her death before our memorial reception.

Since my sister and I grew up in Abilene, the family decided to invite close friends from her past, including friends of her first husband and sons during their childhoods and adolescences. My sweet brother-in-law and his wife graciously came as we had never considered him an “ex” family member.

We had a total of 20 people in attendance. My sister’s grandchildren came, and one even brought my sister’s great-granddaughter. Friends from various phases of my sister’s life came and met other friends. I watched and listened as people shared reminiscences of their relationships with Peggy.

I sensed a spiritual healing as we all expressed our sorrow over losing my sister but also a love and understanding of human foibles and regrets. As I experienced this gathering, I thought of how much my sister would have loved to join our gathering. I like to think that she knows how much grace and benevolence that room contained.

Nancy Patrick is a retired teacher who lives in Abilene and enjoys writing