Before I get started today I would like to mention that I left something out (accidentally) in my last blog. In my baby book there is a card from my great grandparents. It says "Matilda told us she would trade the new baby for a watermelon." Yes.......this came from my best friend. She only wanted a watermelon for me. She could have AT LEAST asked for a new bike or something that she was going to enjoy for MORE than an hour! Of all things that are Holy!! I am offended.....and slighted......and she will have to pay.
Now onto today's subject. Marla. She was born in April of 1968. I am told she had eyes "black as night." I don't know a lot about her and it's not for lack of trying. I know that she didn't want to live in town. She loved living in the country and when the family moved to town, she hated it. We even lived across the street from a park and she hated it. In all her pictures, she looks just like Matilda. Except it was easier to make Matilda smile I'm guessing.
When I was just a year old, the older kids were at school; dad had the day off so mom took the opportunity to go to the store.....alone. She NEVER got that opportunity so she wasn't about to miss it this day. Marla wanted to go with mom and mom told her no. She told her she had to stay home and play with her brother and sister. She went off to the bedroom, crying and mom left. I was on dad's lap and I suppose we were watching the tv; Herc and Marla eventually started playing in the bedroom that was right off the livingroom. If I had to guess, I would say they were twenty feet apart, at the most.
Someone had gotten an Easy Bake Oven for a birthday or something because this was the middle of December. Santa Claus hadn't come yet. Herc and Marla decide to make a cake in the oven and as they were playing, the oven shorted out. Keep in mind, this was in 1971 and everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) went up in smoke FAST. Immediately the wallpaper was on fire; the carpet was on fire and the kids were SCARED. Herc ran out of the bedroom and screamed "Fire fire fire!" Dad saw nothing but smoke and grabbed Herc by one arm and me around the waist and runs outside. He dropped us in the front yard and yelled at the neighbor to call the fire department.
By the time he could get back in the house, there was no way he could find Marla. What he didn't know until later was that she had backed in the closet thinking the fire couldn't get her and she hid. The firemen finally found her. She had died of smoke inhalation but of course, suffered some burning. My mom didn't even get to see her in her casket. Nobody did.
My dad never forgave himself for that. Not one minute of his life. Even though he did what he could do. I'm pretty sure mom never forgave herself either. Really. Now, me being just a year old, I don't remember any of it. Isn't that odd? The only thing about that house that I remember is going out the south door and watching someone feed the pug dogs, which we would breed and sell. That's it. I don't remember the fire. I don't remember having to live among people until our house was re-modeled. I don't remember NOT ever living with my brothers and sisters. But it all happened.
I have tried to imagine it over and over again and Matilda and I talk sometimes about how we think Marla would have turned out if she hadn't died that fateful day. What IF she would have gotten to go to the store with mom? I hate to think that maybe there would have been a terrible car crash and I would have lost my mom too or a kidnapping that we wouldn't even know the outcome of. I am a firm believer that things happen in God's time and no matter what, you have to trust Him. We don't need to know the answers to everything right now anyway. If we did, the human race would be an awful breed.
Anyway, the kids got "farmed out," as they used to say, to relatives and close family friends. I didn't though. I guess because I was still so young, they thought I better hang out with them. I can't even imagine what that must have been like for them. The family. I have asked many many times about Marla; about the things she liked; the things she didn't like. I have even went as far as to ask about her funeral; her casket; everything I could think of. I don't get much for answers though. Nobody likes to talk about stuff like that. I do. I want to know it all. I have to visualize all of this to process it and I can't do it without help. I don't know if all of my brothers and sisters got to attend the funeral and if they did, they probably don't like to talk about it either. I know I wasn't there. I had to stay with the neighbor lady. But that is okay. I probably wouldn't remember that either.
So all I can tell you about my big sister Marla is that she loved the outdoors. She loved animals. She loved her brothers and sisters. But she hated being in town. When they lived in the country, they had geese. Mom always said she never had to worry about Marla going out in the road because the geese would surround her and keep her in the yard. They were the perfect little babysitters............until it was time for Marla to go in the house and she didn't want to. She would say "no" and mom would "get after" her. And if mom would go NEAR Marla, the geese would chase mom away. Mom had to wait until either dad got home or Marla was tired enough to come in the house.
We have very few pictures of Marla. Lost them in the house fire, of course. When we do stumble upon someone that has one we haven't ever seen, it's like Christmas Day for us. We had one of those sent to Marta in her email a while back. That was awesome. After the fire though, many many many people came from near and far, to put our house back together again. It was the same house but it was a different house too.
We didn't stay there long. I think a year. That was really hard on my parents to live there. Then we moved to the jail house. Just a few years ago, we got to go inside that house again. It was so nice. Of course it had been redone a time or two since we had lived there but mom said most of it was the same as when we lived there. She showed us exactly where dad and I were sitting and where Herc and Marla were playing. The closet isn't there anymore. But I can see how she ended up there. Very scary stuff, fire.
So even though I didn't really know Marla, I love her dearly and can't wait to "meet" her someday. The few things I do know about this house fire and what happened, took years and years for me to find out. My parents believed you didn't talk about things like that. I wish I had some good stories to tell on her but I know she watches me everyday and laughs at the stoopid things I do and tells all her friends and family in Heaven about her silly sister. Thanks Marla -_- I love you <3
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