Melissa

Melissa

As an infant, my older sister Melissa was scooting about the kitchen in a walker one day, when she reached up and pulled the cord that was hanging down from the kettle. Boiling hot water coursed down her face, over her shoulders and across her chest and back. My mother, Rae risked drowning her in order to save Melissa’s face, but third degree burns scarred her neck, shoulders, and upper torso. Her skin literally melted under the heat of the water and in time became pale, gnarled, and shiny.

She has a scar on her hip from where a skin graft was attempted at Middlemore hospital. She was nil by mouth for the procedure, and woke up hungry. She must have burrowed her way into her bandages as she was discovered chewing on her newly grafted skin.

As children we would stroke each other’s back and I remember liking the feeling of her silky smooth, yet uneven skin that swirled beneath my fingertips. To me, she and her burns were beautiful, but to some other children, the burns made her a monster. She never had the freedom to run around in her togs as a child. She always covered her shoulders, and wore her hair down to disguise the scarring on her neck.

Melissa also has a large scar on her chest. She was born with a hole and a murmur in her heart, and when she was 18 months old she had open heart surgery. In the days before keyhole surgery, her chest was cut down the middle, her ribs broken and spread apart, and her heart operated on. I never appreciated how harrowing these events must have been for my parents until I had kids of my own. I look at their tiny little bodies, and cannot comprehend something so traumatic happening to them.

Fortunately, Melissa’s scarring did not dampen her popularity with other kids. She had (and has) a lucky combination of being full of charisma, having the gift of the gab, and being beautiful. Her presence is felt in a room. Unsurprisingly, Melissa always had a good-looking boyfriend on the go. I remember one of them being particularly crushed when she jilted him. I could not comprehend why she would dump a guy so gorgeous…so out of my league. I was her younger, smaller, paler, and mousier sister, who elicited barely a glimmer of interest from boys.

Oddly, I don’t recall ever being jealous of her popularity. On the contrary, I puffed up with pride that this amazing person was related to little, boring old me. I probably thought that if people realised I was her sister, some of the glow of popularity would rub off. I don’t think it ever did, but it was of no consequence - I was more than happy with my small group of friends, and quite terrified at the thought of ever having to kiss a boy.

Melissa made the mistake of making a star pose wearing just three grapevine leaves as a child, long enough for my mother to take a photo. At the time it must have seemed hilariously cute. Unfortunately, my mother tortured my sister with it once she became a teenager. Whenever a new flame, or prospect was to drop by, Rae would threaten to bring it out and humiliate her. Whether she was really that cruel or just astonishingly ignorant, it is hard to tell, but my mother inflicted a lot of pain on my sister that way. For a teenager, a semi-nude child photo is embarrassing enough, but for a young person with scarring, it is unthinkable that another young person may see it.

The morning of Melissa’s final school exam, Rae “confessed” to her that she didn’t love her. Melissa, distraught, never made it to that exam, but still scraped through with a University Entrance from her other subjects. It was her misfortune that Rae had a propensity for inserting herself into the pivotal life events of her children and causing as much damage as she could.

Lacking support and encouragement, Melissa drifted away from formal education, and entered the workforce full time. She was a talented sales person, no surprises there, and did well for herself, but she had some rough years as a young woman, left home early (although drifted back from time to time) and struggled with her past.

Outwardly, Melissa and I had an adversarial relationship. She was always trying to shake me off. I was four years younger than her, a bit of a nerd, and must have been a pain in the arse, trying to hang around her and her friends. By the time I was seventeen, things between us changed. We had lived in separate households for three years by then and the separation, and the fact I was no longer a kid, allowed us to build a new kind of relationship. We became good friends.

Eventually she settled down with a loving, caring, sensitive and committed man. Together they established a family of their own – two kiddies and one on the way. He made some money from professional rugby in Japan, and now, back in NZ they run a small business together, have a beautiful home, and are very comfortably off.

I am grateful for happy endings.