When God Rode Shotgun
They always thought she was bipolar. That was the label stamped on her chart.
All those years — medications, misunderstandings, missteps.
But the truth? She was autistic.
And her whole life was shaped by a story that didn’t belong to her.
Every time she fell, her big sister was there.
Her one-woman rescue team. Her lighthouse.
Even when the world couldn’t see her, she did.
Then came the strokes — three.
Back to back.
She lay in her big bed, with nothing to hold on to but broken history and
knowing her sister would come.
She always did.
But snowstorms don’t ask permission.
And silence stretched long —
Six months without much of anything.
No visit. No phone call.
She almost broke.
Not just from the brain injury, but from the wait.
Then a while later—
A whisper of a promise: “I’m coming.”
But something inside her said,
Don’t wait. Just go…. But she could not go. She couldn’t for many confusing reasons.
But her big sister finally showed up.
And like some sacred movie scene —
Two sisters, side by side.
One on oxygen. One weak from the strokes.
Both in wheelchairs.
Both looking like warriors in the aftermath of battle and a lot like their mother.
They couldn’t say much.
But they didn’t have to.
They understood.
Turned out —
The day of the stroke,
her sister had been in a car accident.
Broken ribs. Grandbabies in the back seat.
That’s why she didn’t come.
And she was okay.
She was okay.
That mattered more than words.
As the little sister healed,
the memories started to blur.
Even the good ones.
She tried to hold on —
to childhood giggles, to inside jokes, to Teddybear,
to the way the sun hit them in Texas,
to that one morning they both woke up
and the kitty was gone.
No one said it out loud,
but big sister remembered her way and lil sister another.
Sometimes,
the brain lets go before the heart is ready.
Still —
She believes.
Someday, the memories will return.
In flashes. In dreams.
In the wind against her face
when she’s 80 years old
driving her red convertible
with God riding shotgun.