My Sisters' List
When my sister was 15 years old she began going to the youth group at our church. She became very involved and started to build a very strong faith. One day, she came home telling my mom and myself that she had made this list of every quality her future husband had to have. Some of these qualities included no cursing, no heavy drinking, must play the guitar and must love dogs (just to name a few of several). But, the quality at the top of her list is that he had to have a strong faith in God. Let me say that all the things on this list was something no one ever thought would be possible for any one person to have...until John came along. John and my sister were friends until he finally got the courage to ask her on her first date the day she turned 16. From this point on, my sister and John were inseparable. We spent every Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, New Years and any other holiday you can possibly think of with John. He became part of our family. To me, he was like the type of big brother that would want to know everything about who I was going on a date with and embarrass me in front of new boyfriends at dinner. Right before my sisters 20th birthday in 2007, John purposed and their wedding was held just 4 months later while they were both 20. Their marriage was the type of marriage that you knew would last. On their wedding day I remember asking him if he was ready for this, and he responded with, "I knew she was the love of my life the second I laid eyes on her". My friends were always shocked when they discovered my sister was married at 20, and I always responded with complete confidence that they would be those old people as much in love on their 50th anniversary as they were the day they married. After they had graduated college, my sister was accepted to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. They left on their adventure in August 2010. While she was in school, John worked at horse stables that provided physical therapy for children and was in the process of getting his Masters degree. In March 2011 my sister had accepted a teaching job in Abu Dhabi, UAE that would start in August. Of course, the weather in Scotland is completely opposite than the weather in Abu Dhabi, so John headed back to New Mexico in May 2011 to gather their summer clothes and visit our families while my sister stayed in Scotland to finish her dissertation and get things ready for their anniversary trip to London that upcoming week.
A week before John was supposed to head back to Scotland, he was at his families ranch during annual branding season when he suddenly collapsed and passed away. My sister had become a 24 year old widow with absolutely no warning.
A couple of facts about John before he passed. When he was in high school he fainted twice. Once in church, and once during a basketball game. The doctors could never figure out what was wrong with him and his family couldn't afford tests to be done because they did not have health insurance at the time. His last collapse was his junior year of high school and after years of nothing happening, we assumed it had something to do with his height (6' 7") and wasn't a big concern.
The day before John passed, he was Skyping my sister, complaining that he had a headache and his stomach had been upset. They both decided it must be the food he was eating that his body hadn't been used to for a while. At the ranch, someone had noticed that John had been a little shaky, but assumed it was because it was his first time tagging cattle. Minutes later he fell. He was in the 15% of patients that die before reaching the hospital. It has been over a month and the only thing the doctors can conclude is that he had a brain aneurysm.
A brain aneurysm is an abnormal bulging outward of one of the arteries in the brain as the blood vessel weakens. Aneurysms are usually not discovered until they rupture and cause bleeding into the brain. John had a Subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is when the aneurysm ruptures into the space around the brain and spinal cord called the subarachnoid space. For every 100 people who have aneurysms, 1 will rupture leading to this type of hemorrhage.
Aneurysms develop as a result of thinning and degenerating artery walls and are most common in the base of the brain. Symptoms of a brain aneurysm include, but are not limited to: nausea, vomiting, severe headache, dizzyness, sensitivity to light and seizures. While John experienced nausea, a headache, and eventually a seizure, all statistical evidence was against him.
Evidence states that women are more likely to have aneurysms than men and the African American race is more likely to have them than all other races. Those who smoke cigarettes, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, do drugs (specifically cocaine) and consume excessive amounts of alcohol are all at risk for an aneurysm to rupture. He never smoked a day in his life, very rarely drank and never touched a drug. He lived an incredibly healthy lifestyle which means he must have been born with some sort of brain defect that was never caught. They plan on continuing the autopsy in hopes of finding the answers behind this occurrence and figuring out whether or not his previous fainting experiences had anything to do with it.
My sister had to fly 30 hours home by herself the next day knowing that this time in her life would be her first time without John in almost 10 years; however, I have never seen and probably will never see someone hold their head up and know they have to move on like my sister has. She has not sat alone in the dark feeling sorry for herself, hid under the covers, or put everything else in her life off, including her dissertation. John never would have chosen to leave my sister, but he also would never want her to not live her life in the same way that she had been while he was still with her. My sister is going through the toughest, most heartbreaking time of her life and has not given up. Seeing this is proof that John did not just meet the qualities on my sisters list, he topped them. He made her a better person and unknowingly gave her the strength she would need to get through this. This challenges myself and everyone I know that knew my sister and John to look at our lives and see that while we may have hard times, moving on with your head held high is completely possible.
A week before John was supposed to head back to Scotland, he was at his families ranch during annual branding season when he suddenly collapsed and passed away. My sister had become a 24 year old widow with absolutely no warning.
A couple of facts about John before he passed. When he was in high school he fainted twice. Once in church, and once during a basketball game. The doctors could never figure out what was wrong with him and his family couldn't afford tests to be done because they did not have health insurance at the time. His last collapse was his junior year of high school and after years of nothing happening, we assumed it had something to do with his height (6' 7") and wasn't a big concern.
The day before John passed, he was Skyping my sister, complaining that he had a headache and his stomach had been upset. They both decided it must be the food he was eating that his body hadn't been used to for a while. At the ranch, someone had noticed that John had been a little shaky, but assumed it was because it was his first time tagging cattle. Minutes later he fell. He was in the 15% of patients that die before reaching the hospital. It has been over a month and the only thing the doctors can conclude is that he had a brain aneurysm.
A brain aneurysm is an abnormal bulging outward of one of the arteries in the brain as the blood vessel weakens. Aneurysms are usually not discovered until they rupture and cause bleeding into the brain. John had a Subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is when the aneurysm ruptures into the space around the brain and spinal cord called the subarachnoid space. For every 100 people who have aneurysms, 1 will rupture leading to this type of hemorrhage.
Aneurysms develop as a result of thinning and degenerating artery walls and are most common in the base of the brain. Symptoms of a brain aneurysm include, but are not limited to: nausea, vomiting, severe headache, dizzyness, sensitivity to light and seizures. While John experienced nausea, a headache, and eventually a seizure, all statistical evidence was against him.
Evidence states that women are more likely to have aneurysms than men and the African American race is more likely to have them than all other races. Those who smoke cigarettes, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, do drugs (specifically cocaine) and consume excessive amounts of alcohol are all at risk for an aneurysm to rupture. He never smoked a day in his life, very rarely drank and never touched a drug. He lived an incredibly healthy lifestyle which means he must have been born with some sort of brain defect that was never caught. They plan on continuing the autopsy in hopes of finding the answers behind this occurrence and figuring out whether or not his previous fainting experiences had anything to do with it.
My sister had to fly 30 hours home by herself the next day knowing that this time in her life would be her first time without John in almost 10 years; however, I have never seen and probably will never see someone hold their head up and know they have to move on like my sister has. She has not sat alone in the dark feeling sorry for herself, hid under the covers, or put everything else in her life off, including her dissertation. John never would have chosen to leave my sister, but he also would never want her to not live her life in the same way that she had been while he was still with her. My sister is going through the toughest, most heartbreaking time of her life and has not given up. Seeing this is proof that John did not just meet the qualities on my sisters list, he topped them. He made her a better person and unknowingly gave her the strength she would need to get through this. This challenges myself and everyone I know that knew my sister and John to look at our lives and see that while we may have hard times, moving on with your head held high is completely possible.