Prologue to LADYBUG

Prologue
She would be 21 now. She would be driving, a red VW bug is what I picture her in. Red, like a ladybug, shiny and new. That would be the most fitting, at least to us it would be. Her whole life, we have all symbolized her with a ladybug.

I spent the summer after my sophomore year of high school in Portugal and discovered that “joaninha” was Portuguese for ladybug. I discovered this only because of a tasty chocolate covered, ladybug shaped cookie made in Lisbon, with red and black ladybugs on the packaging. So, two years later, when my brother randomly came up with the name Joanna for our 4 day old, yet unnamed baby sister, it was only natural that we began to shower her with ladybugs.

It’s funny though, we do not know if she liked ladybugs, much less liked being showered with them. I have always said that it would be bittersweet if one day she ‘snapped’ out of it and her first sentence was something to the effect of, “what is it with you people and ladybugs?” Bitter, in that she has been flooded with every kind of ladybug imaginable for her entire life, 17 years to be exact. Even now, ladybugs are exchanged amongst our family as we struggle to deal with her life, as we struggle to keep the connection. She had ladybug pictures, a bedside rug, throw pillows, stuffed animals, a big fuzzy soft blanket, jewelry, socks, panties, t-shirts, PJ’s, house shoes, all kinds of books with ladybugs as the main characters, bags, purses, stickers, magnets.

Ladybugs perpetrated our entire house in the forms of hot pads, coasters, towels, fan pulls, soaps. My mom even has a ladybug tattoo, a very small tasteful tattoo that most people never see, much less would ever imagine she had. She is definitely not the type to have any kind of body art, but it seemed somehow appropriate and we daresay normal for her to have a permanent ladybug on her body.

Most recently, ladybugs are the main theme of her garden, in our backyard, behind the swimming pool, nestled in a crook by the pool fence. There, ladybugs adorn a bench, a stepping stone, a bird feeder, a children’s swing.

And we, the girls in her family, all have tiny silver ladybugs hanging on black leather strings on our necks. Most days, we all wear them because it is surprisingly difficult and somewhat tear jerking to decide not to wear it in order to wear something else.

I said bittersweet. Bitter because what would become of 17 years of ladybugs? How could we possibly give up a lifetime collection of this symbol if she were to tell us she hated them? But, sweet because just hearing her utter a sentence, a question, a phrase, or even a word would fill all of us with an indescribable joy. She has not ever been able to talk, not in the normal sense of the word anyway. There were some words in her younger years that we all came to recognize, much in the same way parents marvel at their toddlers first string of language.

Slowly, from age 3 until about age 9, she built a limited base of vocabulary. I mostly remember the names she called us: Igi (Jenny), Ama (Adam), Taty (Katy), Mack (Max), Daddy, and Mom. We also often heard her yelling NO for many varied and strange reasons. Handfuls of other words made their way into her early collection and at her peak, she was able to put 3 or 4 together in a toddler-like sentence or question.

She also signed a lot in those days. Her favorite signs were “potty” (a fist waved up and down with the thumb on the outside flat up against the pointer), “eat” (all four fingers and thumb joined in a large pointing gesture touching the lips), and “more” (the same large pointing gesture with both hands pointing at one another back and forth). Everywhere we went she loved to go to the potty. She would go as many times as anyone would take her. I mean anyone, literally. She would sign this to any walking person, she did not reserve potty requests for us. No, she reached out to strangers with her hand sign, pleading with her beautiful big brown eyes and mesmerizing smile, for someone to please take her to the potty. She quickly attracted the attention of many. Our whole family made friends of strangers who were drawn to her in restaurants, grocery stores, malls. Everywhere she went, she was a people magnet, a most unforgettable girl.

She loved to eat and she always wanted more. She liked to have good food, things like doughnuts, cookies, cheeseburgers. These treats excited her, her whole face would light up and her perfectly unique, yet always mischevious smile would fill her face as she devoured first servings and habitually requested more with her sign.

For many years, we have not heard that sweet voice calling our names. Nor have we seen her skinny childlike hands signing to us her requests. We have only had occasional sounds, deep gutteral moanings. At best, signaling a shallow gut instinct to communicate. At worst, an audible plea for someone to help her out of her misery somehow. My mom has always said that she was in fact “talking” to us and that she did know what was going on. She insisted that her sounds indicated her mood, that she was fully alive inside. She went as far as to say that she understood some of them to mean things, such as “no, more, go” and other such communication that would indicate what she wanted or desperately needed from someone. Me, I chose, well not chose as much as forced myself to believe that she did not know what was going on. I had to tell myself that the sounds were just involuntary, nothing much more than bubbles of air making their way out of her throat. I had to trust that God would not allow her to experience such tremendous suffering and keep her brain alive to live with it. Selfishly, I had to trust that she was gone a long time before she stopped breathing.