Brothers and sisters or siblings, in youth, fight like cats and dogs.
That was true for me and my sister, Tammy. We weren’t close during our childhood and teenage years. We were always bickering.
Growing up, I was the angel and she was the devil. 🙂 I’m kidding — she wasn’t Satan, but she was definitely a hellion!
Trust me, with all the fights she got into at school, on the bus, and in the neighborhood, you know what I’m talking about if you knew teenaged Tammy!
That all changed in November 1990 with the death of our mother, Dessie, at the age of 47, when we were in our mid-20s. We lived more of our lives with only the memory of our mother than we shared with her.
Sadly, I had to say goodbye to my sister and my best friend for the past thirty-five years.
She fought a good fight!
I started this entry in November 2021 and like a cat with nine lives, Tammy bounced back from one health scare after another — heart attacks, a stroke, significant weight gain from water retention, along with chronic ailments like COPD and congestive heart failure.
She almost died in early 2022, but she recovered and we even escaped to Cancun that summer.
Sadly though, she made no lifestyle changes — she continued to smoking, ate unhealthily, and refused to exercise.
In December 2022, we enjoyed our last flight together to one of my favorite places, Palm Springs, California. Tammy loved it, too.
In August 2023, she had a stroke. That fall, our road trip to Branson, Missouri, would be the last before her health decline altered the rest of her life.
Sadly, she almost died again in November 2023.
It was the first time in my life that I was called in the middle of the night and had to make the decision of putting her on life support. I agreed to it on a temporary basis.
After that ordeal, she was put on oxygen around the clock, had many more long hospitalizations, and her body finally gave out.
Late this spring, she was approved for disability, but she kept working three shifts a week until this last hospital stay.
Earlier this month, I got another late night call from the hospital in Decatur. Her veins were crashing and they needed my permission to catheterize them and also to put her back on life support. I agree to both as a temporary fix to see if she’d bounce back.
She stayed on the ventilator for more than four days and was weaned off it and stayed in the hospital while they tried to get her kidneys functioning again. Finally, the doctor leveled with her and said, home hospice was her only real option.
While she physically fought to stay alive, I believe she had already given up mentally. And, sadly, I fully understand it. Her quality of life from a medical standpoint was truly diminished and her home life was in shambles.
Enough about that, I want to talk about my sister and share a few stories you may have never heard.
Some of you know Tammy from growing up in Kentucky. Some from Tennessee and others from the Quad Cities.
I’ve know Tammy since September 24, 1966, when she was born in a small hospital in Fulton, Kentucky.
I’m almost two years older than my Tammy.
KIDS SAY THE DARNEST THINGS
Talking about our childhood, Tammy loved telling this story: one day my mother came into the room and she couldn’t find the baby.
Tammy “claims” I shoved her up under the bed and when my mother asked where Tammy was, my reply was “I don’t know where the baby is”. And, she goes on to say that I tried to feed her a chicken leg bone.
Where do kids come up with these stories?
TELEVISION DEBUT
I remember the time when Tammy and I made our television debut! Yes, as children, we were on the local NBC affiliate’s “Popeye” show with Captain Joe in May 1970.
I’ll never forget my sister’s answer when he asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. She replied, “a fire truck”! He said, “do you mean a fireman?” (No ERA or women’s lib there!) And, she quickly shot back, “No, I want to be a fire truck and have fireman ride me and go ‘woo woo'” (making a siren sound)!
When he came to me, I can’t remember what I said beyond him asking my name. When I replied, he asked if I was related to Tammy and I said, “No. I don’t know her.” My mother said we’d never be on television again. Oh well, Moms know MOST everything!
That is Tammy’s high school senior picture from 1985.
After our mother died, I left Kentucky in the summer of 1994 to start living my life in Chicago. Tammy finally took up residence in Clarksville, Tennessee, via a bad move to Michigan with her deadbeat husband she never divorced.
Because I was moving around the country with my career, Tammy would come and visit me in Chicago, Ohio, Texas, and Maryland.
Here are some pictures during that time.
The first is for the Michael Buble concert in Moline, Illinois, in 2008, and the second is in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2010 when my ex, my golden retriever, ABBA, and I drove down and met Tammy there for the weekend to party.
That goofy picture is at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe’s gift shop, which was a fantastic restaurant to eat at!
We even danced in a cage at the Connection, a wonderful (but gone) gay bar/drag show bar.
Tammy and I didn’t spend holidays together from 1994 until the fall of 2011 when I stopped funding her poor decisions and forced her to move to the Quad Cities (Moline, Illinois) where I was living.
While she wasn’t happy with the ultimatum, she made the most of it and finally got a grasp of her finances.
From the time my mother died in 1990 until 2011, I lost about $20,000 that I didn’t have giving her money and letting her use my credit cards. Plus, I even gave her my car when I moved to Chicago that I still had to pay off.
However, that 2011 move got her on track. I told her we’d forget that old debt, but I expected every penny post-2011 to be paid back — it was a matter of principle. At one point, after the move to the Quad Cities, she owed me $15,000, but at the time of her death, that balance was down to less than $2,000.
I’m so proud of my baby sister and all that she has accomplished in getting her life back on track in the past decade or so. If she had just been strong enough to take the necessary steps to improve her health and prolong her life.
Tammy was there standing up with me when I took my one chance at marriage in the fall of 2011.
And, while the relationship failed after eight years, I’m so grateful my ex, Ray, was always so warm and cordial to Tammy and let her know she was loved and was an integral part of our family.
Tammy especially loved the cruises we took together.
One day sometime after we started dating (early 2009) and before Tammy moved to the Quad Cities, Ray and I were on the phone with her. She was in Clarksville, Tennessee, at a drive-thru window.
The next thing we hear is Tammy yelling, “Bitch, I’ll grab your ass through that window and beat the f**k out of you!”
Age didn’t mellow Tammy in her 40s (or her 50s) and from that day forward, I think Ray was scared of her. 🙂
Once she moved to the Quad Cities, we celebrated every holiday together through Christmas 2016.
After my separation and divorce, I made the irrational decision to take a job in Panama City, Florida, in 2017, and worked my way back to the Midwest the following year to Duluth, Minnesota, where I stayed two years.
In the spring of 2020, I took the job in Central Illinois and later that summer, Tammy moved to Decatur, Illinois. It wasn’t her favorite place, but we were together again.
And, she absolutely loved Pug Xanadu when I got her in early 2023.
Most of the fashionista outfits Xanadu wears and most of her toys, including her best friend, COW, were from Aunt Tammy.
In November 2020, on the 30th anniversary of the death our mother, I wrote, “She wasn’t just my mother — she was my biggest supporter, my rock, and my friend. (Now, my sister, Tammy, is that person that’s there for me!)”
These are our last pictures with Tammy when we were on vacation in October 2025.
My dear sister, Tammy, is no longer struggling to breathe and carry on with life. She’s with my mother now.
My friend, I’ll miss you and think of you daily!
Anthony
P.S. Over the past decade, I made peace with Tammy dying one day and that we’d enjoy what time we had left.
When the hospital called a few Sundays ago and asked about temporarily putting her back on life support, I allowed myself a good cry and listened to the “Beaches” soundtrack.
I knew I’d probably have to make the decision sooner rather than later to pull life support. (Luckily, God took care of it and I didn’t have to do that!)
On the way to work the next morning, I heard this and saw it as a sign.
Goodbye Tammy and fly high, sister!
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