Happy 50th Birthday Wendy

Dear Wendy,

Happy Birthday! You have a very special gift coming this year!

I want to tell you more about that gift but first here is what you missed over the last half century. At 2:51 P.M. on Friday December 18, 1970, you graced the world with your presence. You were born at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia to Eva and Charles Lipman. They had big dreams for you but unfortunately life had other plans. Fifteen days after your birth, your journey ended due to being born with a horrible genetic disease known as cystic fibrosis (CF). There was only one picture taken of you, you never left the hospital and there was not enough time to even give you a Hebrew name which is custom in the Jewish religion.

I too was born to Eva and Charles just 33 months later. Thanks to your diagnosis, doctors knew that there was a 25 percent chance that I would have the disease as well. When they detected that I had meconium ileus (blockage of the intestine), they knew that I too would be in a battle against the leading genetic killer in the United States.

I didn’t know anything about you growing up except that you were a few years older than me and that you died very suddenly. I didn’t ask a lot of questions, but I could sense that as the climate grew colder in Georgia that Mom became a different person. She transformed from an upbeat person to someone who was dealing with extreme sadness. What I didn’t realize was that she was dealing with grief every year around your birthday.

The best day every year for me was my birthday because Mom always made it special whether she asked my Aunt Susie to make me a Superman cake, hired magicians to dazzle me and my friends or rented horses for all of us to ride in our backyard. The only constant was getting a big hug every year and hearing how I will always be her 10-pound, 10-ounce baby boy. As I grew older, I still got that big embrace and I was still guilted into knowing how difficult it was to give birth to me because I was the largest baby at Northside Hospital when I was born.

I didn’t realize that every year she celebrated your birthday too. The celebration was quite different. She would visit your grave and bring you a stuffed animal. It wasn’t until I was 25 that I got up the nerve to ask her how you lost your life. I didn’t know that you had cystic fibrosis too. She said that the family kept it a secret from me because they didn’t want me to be scared. I now have two children of my own and have learned to appreciate the reason that they kept this information confidential.

Today would have been your 50th birthday, but you won’t be getting a stuffed animal from Mom this year. In late August, she was hospitalized and spent a considerable amount of time including my birthday in the hospital until finally being diagnosed with lymphoma.

She fought a difficult battle against cancer and lost her life on November 18th. They say the number 18 means life in the Jewish religion. How fitting that you were born on the 18th and Mom died on the 18th. I am going to miss spending birthdays with her. I am really missing those hugs.

In your memory, we started Wish for Wendy and have raised $4.5 million for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation over the last twenty years. In Mom’s memory just over the past month, we have raised another $130,000 as we close in on our goal of $150,000. We could not do our charity tournament this year due to a pandemic and Mom’s illness, but we are still raising money for cystic fibrosis because there is no time like the present to find a cure for a disease that has taken so many people including yourself. Your memory has led to so many breakthroughs in the world of cystic fibrosis. Mom’s memory along with yours will someday lead us to a cure.

In a year in which we have incurred so much heartache in our family, I am trying to find the silver lining. Perhaps it is that for the first time in half a century that you will be spending your birthday with the most amazing person that I have ever known. I monopolized her for 47 years and I always knew that one day I would have to give her up. I just thought I had more time. I’m hoping this is the first of many in which you both can spend time together.

I just wanted to let you know that you are getting the greatest gift that one could ever ask for. Please don’t take that amazing hug for granted like I did for 47 years.

Until we meet again.

Your brother,

Andy
Live your dreams and love your life.