Betty Remembered by Elaine Goldberg Schwartz Betty was not always ill. It seems hard to appreciate considering that the past 35 to 40 years of her life, the last half, were spent suffering from illnesses and body breakdowns. And yet, my surviving image of my beloved sister-in-law is of a joyful, outgoing woman, quick to laugh, most often with a smile on her face. Sometimes with a smirk. Betty could be bitingly sarcastic, and she could also be lovingly giving -- sometimes to an overly generous degree. In a word, Betty was an enigma; remarkably bright, with many sides to her personality. I first knew her as a "sister". Sister-in-law actually, brought home by my brother from college as the woman he would marry. I was an impressionable teenager, very much in love with the idea of love. Betty made a very big impression on me. Partly, of course, as the chosen of my brother, whom I was mad about, but also because she was casual and outgoing and not afraid to show how much our family meant to her. She was able to easily and casually do many of the things I could not, like playing the guitar and singing, never my forte. She was always understanding of my plight as a teen-ager beset by all the insecurities and uncertainties that plague all self-centered teen-agers. She would sit on my bed with me while I stretched out and related the latest crushes, the gossip, the teachers, good and bad, and all the stories that girls speak endlessly about, making vital the most trivial events. She was my sister and my friend. Our family and our living quarters were both small, we lacked luxuries, both my parents worked, but for Betty living with us was the apogee of her life to then. Little wonder, Betty's life had not been easy, having lost her mother, she had been in foster care for part of her growing-up years. Why shouldn't she be cynical of life? More to the point: how could she be so evidently happy with the simple life our family offered her? We practically lived together, even after her children started coming, a ll beautiful, all loved. All was achieved, she had a loving and beautiful family, and, finally, riches beyond her wildest dream. Then her life began falling apart. Lupus put her in danger of death in her thirties. My brother would go each weekend to Boston, where she was being treated. Then, when they finally found the life saving drug for her, another blow, her husband, my brother died. I choose to remember only the good times. The New Year's parties at Stokes Forest with its outhouses and friends frolicking. The folk singing sessions. The wonderful parties. The long talks. Betty was the only sister I ever had. I will miss her.