My other hero. (Part 1)

The first of (probably) two posts about my baby sister Jessica, ICU nurse and badass.

I hope that y’all have enjoyed my series on my badass sister, Dr. Juliana Nichols-Hazlett EdD. I have more than one badass sister, and today I wish to tell you all about my baby sister, Jessica.

There were only very short periods in our childhood, the weeks or months between foster children, where Juliana and I were the only kids in the house. Just before I found out that Mom was pregnant with Jessica, I had asked that after the current foster kids went back home, that we stop being a foster family. I was burnt out by being a child whose family fostered children. My parents agreed. I don’t think that I was an especially eloquent preteen—I think that my parents were kind of leaning that way already.

This dork couldn’t convince his parents to let him get a haircut that didn’t look like it came off of a Fisher Price Little People figure.

The process of having a child move in and—(through no fault of their own) disrupt your life, and then become integrated into your family is hard on a kid. Once they are integrated into the family it is a delight to have a new foster sibling. To have a new brother or sister to play with and laugh and fight with is very special. And knowing that you are providing a safe place for a child in need is something to be proud of. Being a foster family is very rewarding. But it does have its demerits. What is downright traumatizing is to have a dozen members of your family ripped out of your home. Some after several years of being a part of your family. To watch these kids be adopted by total strangers, or to go back to homes where neglect and abuse were present was awful. Knowing that you will most likely never see them again was terrible. The periodic dispatches from their caseworkers did little but make their absence more acute. It never got easier to see them go. If anything it got worse, knowing more about how their lives were before they lived with us than I was privy to as a small child. It was tearing me up, and I let my parents know. After the last two girls that were living with us went back home shortly before Jessica was born, we were no longer a foster family. I was not happy about this, but I was relieved.

I think this sums up my feelings about being a foster family.

When I was four years old, I would tear all of the pictures of all of the babies in the old magazines my mom let me make collages with. I would present Mom with all of these pictures in an incredibly subtle ploy to persuade her to have another baby. When I was talking to my mom yesterday about this post, I found out that I would also draw every picture of my family with her dressed in maternity clothes.

Well, I’m not topping that caption.

I desperately wanted a brother or sister that would not leave, and I got my wish when Juliana was born. In my little kid’s magical thinking, I was sure that it was my influence that made my parents decide to have another child. Who’s to say it didn’t? My parents, who planned on having Juliana, that’s who.

By the time we found out that Jessica was on the way, I was incredibly ambivalent about having another sibling. I was ten, almost eleven, and acutely aware of how this kid had been made—and totally grossed out by my parents having sex—in a way that only a preteen could be. I did eventually grow out of that. I’m not a forty-six-year-old man who gets creeped out by pregnancy, I promise. I mean, the concept of purposely adding a new person to the world still wigs me out a little bit, but to each their own. I also knew that there would be a huge gap in ages between myself and the new baby. I missed the foster kids that we used to live with that were my age or older, and I was not sure how I would relate to an infant, when sometimes even the four-and-a-half year gap between Juliana and I seemed almost unbridgeable.

Baby Jessica, the bridge between Juliana and I.

But on October 2, 1984, Jessica Nichelle Nichols appeared in the world and my life has been much improved with her in it. As soon as I saw her after school that day, I loved her intensely and immediately. And I still do. I don’t mean to discount the love I have for my parents and Juliana, but Jessica’s always been my favorite. Everyone knows it. This is not going to surprise anyone. She’s their favorite as well.

Best/worst family photo ever.

Because of our large age gap, we don’t have any sibling rivalry (there are few in our family anyway), and there was the tiniest soupçon of a parent-child relationship as well. By the time I could drive I took her to school. I French-braided her hair, made sure she ate breakfast—simple stuff to help out with that I enjoyed doing because we got to hang out. She was, and is, a lot of fun. She would do her homework with me. We would watch a badly-taped copy of Sleeping Beauty together, repeatedly. Repeatedly. We played games of her devising. She was the only person I allowed in my room. We were buds. She was famous amongst my friends for how funny, precocious, and wickedly smart she was. I mean, she’s still famous amongst my friends for all of those things, but she was really rad for a kindergartener.

Our young rebel is pictured coat-less while standing next to the world’s saddest snowman. All within site of Grandma’s house. Legend. (Being Texas, it was probably 70F a day after snow)

I went away to school, and then dropped out and moved back home. As embarrassing as it was to live back at home, I never regret the time I got to spend with my family—especially Jessica. Around this time is when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and it really started to impact my life. I was emotionally erratic and I am certain, very poor company for everyone, but Jessica always knew how to calm me down. She had said that she wanted to be a nurse since she was very young, and I knew that she would be in a caring profession before she ever put on her scrubs.

Nurse Jessica is on the case.

After high school, Jessica made the only decision that I have ever disagreed with—she became an Aggie. I’m not a college sports fan in any way, so it’s not as though I have intense Longhorn fandom to blame on my anti-Texas A & M bigotry. I have always thought that the graduates of Texas A & M were reactionary cultists that worship a collie dog and a football team that has yet to discover the forward pass. I still feel that way, by the way, but my baby sister is an Aggie now, so you better stfu, son!

Farmers fight! She even got me to wear some Aggie swag. I still own this shirt:

I did quit smoking, thank goodness. The moustache went away right after this picture.

All joking aside, she absolutely loved her time at Texas A & M. She made many lifelong friends and connections—don’t worry, she’s superfuckingliberal, so the reactionary bullshit of College Station didn’t have too much impact on her. She graduated with a degree in sociology and did what everyone one with an undergraduate degree in sociology who doesn’t want to go to grad school for sociology does—she got a job in an unrelated field. She was hired as a patient advocate in the ER at the free hospital for the county we grew up in. From a relatively sheltered suburban life, she got firsthand experience in how poor and otherwise uninsured patients are given medical aid. In the almost four years that she did that job she learned a great deal about how to help underserved populations in an urban environment. There is no real career path that naturally grows out of being a patient advocate, and she felt that she wanted to become more directly involved in the care of her patients anyway. She decided to enroll in nursing school while still working in the ER full time.

She grew a pretty sweet ‘stache back when she was a patient advocate.

After nursing school, she was placed in the same ER where she had worked before. While she was a little more prepared for what to expect because of her previous role there, nothing quite prepares anyone for being a nurse in a busy urban ER that is the only Level 1 trauma center for many counties. It was incredibly stressful. She worked there for a year as a nurse, but combined with her time as an advocate she had almost five years of working in an ER right out of college. When the opportunity to become an MICU nurse at her current hospital came, she took it.

You otter meet my sister, Jessica.

This is a good stopping place for now. Join me again tomorrow for the second and (probably) final installment. I did not intend for this piece on Jessica to be in multiple parts, but here we are. I realize that I said the same thing about my pieces on Juliana. In the meantime, keep her and the other healthcare workers we know and love in your thoughts. Pray for them as well, if that is your thing.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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