Me and My Sisters: Superstars, Then and Now

Sharing Stories

May 18, 2022 at 11:33 p.m.

Superhero games

...by James A. Stansberry

A Childhood Story

Me and My Sisters: Superstars, Then and Now

It's my favorite season, again. Spring.

Everything outside seems to be having a great celebration: flowers blooming, trees yellow/green from newness, and a rare Northwest sunny day, and the sky a delicate blue, like a watercolor painting.

It makes me ache, in a good way, and this year, I do feel like celebrating, because two months ago I sent my breasts to “breast heaven” (better for me than saying I “lost them”) and freed myself from a three-year breast cancer battle. Even the songs on the radio (KEXP, my favorite station now and for the time I battled, watching Bollywood movies, eating Indian food to be vegetarian, and using medical cannabis to fight my cancer) are encouraging me to feel upbeat.

And there are memories from childhood, crowding in, like guests at a baby shower. So many thoughts from when my sister Pam and I played made up “hero games” in our back yard in Houston, Texas, where I grew up.

These memories have been a joyful flood ever since I saw my two amazing sisters, Pam and Julie, when they came to visit me after my surgery.

Today, in particular, I'm remembering one of those “games”—one I made up, as I, being the older sister, always made up the playtime activities.

I should mention that because of an abusive father's strict guidelines about us having friends, we played with each other, being forbidden by our dad from having other friends. He didn't trust the folks in the neighborhood, and even went as far as building a plywood fence around our yard to prevent us from what he thought of, I guess, as “bad influences.”

No matter, Pam, my junior by two years, and I made up endless games to play in that backyard, including one I still remember that had us wearing bath towels for capes and running around the backyard, barefoot, pretending to be superheroes.

I was "Mike,” and she was “Jack” and our superhero group was called “The Waspiatas,” a name I invented.

We'd giggle over mud pies, making little furniture and dishes out of red clay we’d dug out of the dirt in our backyard—in those moments not worrying about being poor. We also made “tea” out of little berries called “China berries” from a tree in our front yard, and pretended to sip, as if we were rich ladies.

We played this game for several summers, keeping each other happy while Mother made us lunch of bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid, which we'd gobble down like haute cuisine.

We wore hand-me-downs, as being two of six children from a poor Black family, new clothes were scarce. But we were superheroes and then—that's all that mattered, and today, on another sunny day, miles away, I remember, my heart aching, missing my sisters all over again, but happy that we've reconnected. A strange gift of my now departed cancer.

James A. Stansberry is a longtime Washington resident and highly valued writer for Ariele’s columns, blogs, and books.

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