Fighting for My Sister

I am not much of a fighter.  Never was.

In fact, even though I was a wrestler in high school, I only enjoyed moderate success due to the fact that I lacked that fighting spirit.  I was just as strong as the other wrestlers in my weight class; I knew the moves as well, if not better than most; I was, I think, a pretty smart wrestler; and, I was in good shape.  Whenever I wrestled a kid who also was simply a wrestler, I usually won.  When I wrestled a kid with a fighter’s heart – I usually lost.  Because most wrestling tournaments included at least one kid who was a fighter deep down inside, I won a lot of 2nd place medals.  In my senior year, this was good enough to be voted 2nd team all-area by the local newspaper – of course.  I would like to say that I am a lover and not a fighter – but, I never really performed too well in that arena either – oh well!

The one exception to this trait, however, was where my sister is concerned.  Pick on my sister and you would have to hold me back.

Prior to her battle with encephalitis, Cathy was two grades ahead of me in school.  After the year she spent 3 months in a coma and started a regime of medications to try to combat the seizures that would plague her for the rest of her life, she was only one grade ahead.  And then my family moved to Centerville, Ohio where I would be starting the 6th grade; Cathy would start 7th grade; and, my two older brothers would be in high school – in another location.  We had no friends and no one knew our history and/or Cathy’s plight.  Kids can be so cruel.

I don’t know how much of it was the result of the illness itself, the three months in a coma or the medications that she poured into her body, but, Cathy was a little bit slow, a little bit jumpy and, when under too much stress, would suffer a seizure.  She immediately became a target for kids to pick on.

Now, I am not saying that I got into a lot of fights, but there were a few.  More often, it was a fight of words trying to get them to leave her alone.  I do remember one fight in school (with a visit to the Principal’s office); one fight on the school bus; and, one fight in the neighborhood.  I remember many times just standing up to the bullies and walking away with my sister.  Cathy wasn’t always aware she was being picked on.

The other situation that occurred was having to help whenever she had a seizure.  Cathy’s seizure’s scared the hell out of people – especially the adults.  Even in school, if Cathy had a seizure, the teachers would often come looking for me to help bring her around.  Cathy’s seizures did not last long – maybe a minute or two, but she would come out of them dazed and confused and you would have to calmly and gently talk her back to normalcy.  She usually came out of her seizures with short-term memory loss and seemed to always think we were back in Charleston, WV at the time when she first became ill.  Kids learned or heard that they could sometimes bring on one of these seizures if they pressured her and, for some unknown reason, a few of them tried to do so.  They used to chant, “Flach attack, Flach attack, Flach attack”.  This is when I usually got involved – trying to stop them from tormenting my sister.

Again, I don’t mean to make this sound like it was a day to day occurrence, because it was not.  This occurred maybe as many as 3 or 4 times each school year.

 Sometimes, it wasn’t so much a “fight” as it was simply trying to get people to understand what my sister was dealing with.  I remember a situation in high school in which this played out.  In my sophomore year, during the wrestling season, I had a locker in the Varsity portion of the locker room.  Since the wrestling season coincided with the basketball season, we shared the locker room with the basketball team.  At my high school, basketball was king, and deservedly so – our boys basketball team was really, really good (and has remained so throughout all these years).  My locker happened to be right next to the locker of one of the basketball team’s super-stars.  He was a nice guy and introduced himself to me early on.  When I told him my name was Joe Flach, he asked, “Oh, are you Cathy Flach’s brother?”  When I responded, “Yes”, he said, almost as a reflex action and not meaning anything hurtful by it (I don’t believe), “Oh, you seem normal enough” (or, something to that extent).  I remember explaining to him, “Cathy has an illness.  She was in a coma for 3 months a few years ago and she takes a lot of pills to get through each day.  There is a reason she is like she is.”  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Huh, I didn’t know that.”  EXACTLY!!

Now, I must admit here, that my reaction was probably more in defense of myself than it was in defense of my sister.  I think that I probably, selfishly, explained Cathy’s situation to people not so much to get them to accept her, but to get them to accept me.  I, shamefully, perhaps, tried to distance myself from my sister and her situation, but, at the same time, developed a sense of rallying to defend those who are picked on.  And that is what grew inside of me.

Cathy has persevered.  She went on and earned an associate’s degree from a Community College and today plays an important role in our family by caring for our Mother with whom she still lives.  Cathy is a loving and doting aunt and has a special way with the younger children, which now include grand-nieces and grand-nephews, who follow her around like the Pied Piper.   She still has to take plenty of pills every day and still suffers from the occasional seizure – still waking from them thinking it is 1969.

And I am still no fighter – I still shy away from and avoid confrontation.  But, pick on someone else – especially those who are a little bit different -  and, the Hulk grows inside of me.  I don’t care what the difference is: a physical or mental challenge; skin color; religious affiliation; sexual preferences; lifestyle; etc. – if I sense that the treatment is the result of an inability to accept someone because of their differences, I am there for their support!