Sweet Tracy

Christmas is always a time to think about loved ones not with you anymore. I always think about my sister at this time of year. She passed when she was 15. The memories are so sweet.

Christmas is always a time for reflection.

This Christmas is going to be different. We’ve lost a third of our family with my Dad passing last year.

And for those of you who don’t know, there’s Tracy. The only girl in the family. Thirteen years younger than me.

She passed when she was 15. In 1995.

I’m not writing this to get sad. Rather all the great memories I have with her.

It really starts before she was born. My Mom was pregnant with Tracy. I was in the 6th grade.

I was always the sweetest boy. Until I got in trouble in school. I don’t know how they do it now, but after 6 weeks, we would either get a S for Satisfactory, an N for Needs Improvement and a U for Unsatisfactory for classroom behavior.

At the 3 weeks mark, the teachers would send home a letter telling parents that their kid was on his/her way to an N or a U. You had to get it signed by a parent and take it back to the teacher. Routine.

Well, my letter was a little different. I had already racked up 3 Us at the 3 weeks mark. Three different classes. I couldn’t do any worse. I was beyond being a brat.

Throwing magazines out of windows. Just being loud and obnoxious. Talking back to the teacher. It is the only time I ever got anything but an S.

I don’t know what my deal was. I guess I thought I could act up with my parents so preoccupied with having Tracy. My Mom was probably 5 or 6 months pregnant.

I panicked. I didn’t want Mom or Dad to see the citizenship report. They were so happy. So I made it worse. I forged my Dad’s signature. It’s easy to sign like him.

That didn’t work. My Dad found out. Somehow I didn’t get grounded. I guess the baby thing. My parents were in too good of a mood.

Tracy came along and changed all of our lives. When you’re 13 years older than your sister, you almost feel like another parent, especially once I got into high school.

I wasn’t always the best at watching over her. Like the time when she was probably 4 or 5 years old and she swallowed 4 quarters. Oh my god I was in a panic. Somehow they all went down and eventually … well you know.

We had so many great times together.

She went with me to the Leon Lett game on a snowy Thanksgiving Day at Texas Stadium in 1993. That of course was when the Cowboys blocked a Miami field goal to win the game only to have Lett touch the ball beyond the line of scrimmage, the ultimate blunder.

The Dolphins recovered the loose ball at the Cowboys 1. Pete Stoyanovich made the short field goal to win it for the Dolphins, 16-14.

Adding to the memory, someone smashed into my car in the parking lot. Oh I was so mad. I don’t remember what time Tracy and I got home.

We had great times on our annual trips to Gunnison, Colorado.

As she got older and started playing soccer, I loved watching her play. For Sting and then Spirit. She was so gifted. She could easily juggle a soccer ball over 100 times.

When she got into high school, she started running cross country and track.

She was All-State as a freshman at Highland Park in cross country. She was an excellent distance runner because of all the years playing soccer. I’m sure she would have won 4A state multiple times.

The best part of the state meet in Georgetown her freshman year is I got to write the story for The Dallas Morning News. We were so proud. I still have the newspaper clip somewhere.

She was your typical high school girl. You never saw her. She was always out with her friends and boys.

She was so beautiful. She loved Tom Petty and Barry Manilow. She already had scholarship offers fron Harvard and Princeton. She was really smart too. She had her whole life in front of her.

She died of pneumonia on March 1, 1995, 20 days shy of sweet sixteen.

I never told this story. Ever. I don’t even know if my Mom knows.

Tracy had been to the emergency room and was sent home with flu like symptoms. The doctors did take X-rays of her lungs, but the radiologist missed the spot on her lungs. Nobody knew.

No antibiotics. She was basically sent home to die.

I remember calling her two nights before she passed. I was in Dallas. I think my first wife Heather was out of town for work.

I asked Tracy how she was doing. She wasn’t feeling well at all, she said. Running a fever again.

My first instinct was to tell her I’m coming over and I’m taking you back to the emergency room. I’m 29 at this time.

I didn’t. We hung up the phone with “I love you.” She died two days later. We were all in New Orleans, waiting for her to be transported from Dallas to try to save her. Her lungs couldn’t handle the flight. We weren’t there to be with her when she passed.

I’ve carried this weight for a long time. What if I had taken her to the emergency room? Would she still be here? Would I have saved her?

I don’t know.

God had a plan.

I have 4 kids now. Every time one of them gets sick — still with the girls in their 20s — I go into a pneumonia panic. Thank the lord Heather and Jennifer calm me down. I’m lucky to be close to both of them.

I think about Tracy every day. She’d be 44. How many kids would she have? Did she go to Texas like the rest of us? Would she live in HP?

We can’t get back what we’ve lost.

But the memories, they can never be taken away.

Merry Christmas sweet Tracy.