生命中姐妹情

This I believe.

In December I traveled to Chicago, to share an evening on stage, with several people who'd written essays for our series 'ThisIbelieve'. Today we hear the first of those. Elynne Chaplik Aleskow, share the story of a love that has not been extinguished by death.

I believe in Ivy. She was my younger sister. She died in a plane crash with my father when she was 16. Ivy was born and an old soul. There was something in her brown eyes that touched your core, when she looked at you. When she smiled, you knew she understood.

I lived at home for most of Ivy's life. That was my good fortune. Our bedrooms were next to each other, and we shared the common wall. Every night when we went to sleep, I'll call out to her through our wall, 'Good night, lovelove''Sweet dream.' That was my nickname for her. 'Lovelove' described how I felt about her. It was a double love. We were 13 years apart. She was my youngest sister and a daughter I would have wanted.

When Ivy was in high school, her English teacher wanted to promote her into honors English. As Ivy's style, she asked the family’s advice, pondered it, and then came up with her own, practical, and clear decision. On this issue, she had decided to stay in regular level English, because she felt that her teacher was excellent. She said that when he spoke, he made her want to hug a dictionary.

Ivy was 14 years old, at the time of this particular insight. She was the girl who befriended of the underdog. If someone were made fun of the group, Ivy would defend that person and protect his or her feelings. Her friends were a cross section of many different types of people. Ivy was quiet and gentle. Often she would observe others, not missing a thing. She was thoughtful, endearing, and loyal. She was on her own person, he own young woman. Unknowingly, she had no time to waste. She had only 16 years to do what she was going to do.

Ivy observed that there were many people who were quietly giving themselves, who were never noticed or acknowledged for their generosity of time and carrying.

After the plane crash, my family, based on Ivy's philosophy, created the Ivy Lynn Chaplik Humanitarian Award at her high school. Ivy's beauty lives on in her family and friends' hearts. Each year in the hearts of the nominee’s for her award, her being is once again touched and her beliefs continue to inspire.

I've been blessed with three sisters, Linda, Susan, and Ivy. They are my treasures. They come from the same love from which I came. We are bound by DNA. Yet, we're also connected, by an invisible frame and foundation, in which and upon which our lives have been shaped and implemented.

What happens when one of the four sisters goes away? Dies. Devastation and longing continue always, and then the magic happens. The unspoken focus among the three of us, to keep our Ivy with us in life. If someone speaks out the three of us, in an, almost naturally choreographed oneness, we answer, four, and she was the best. There'll always be four. We are four. We exist as four. We loved and love as four. We are four sisters in life and death.

-How many years have been since the plane crash?

-December 28th 1974.

-That's a lot of humanity in the wound.

-Yes, yes.

-Given her name. Do people ever find a strange that you think yourselves as four?

-No, I don't think so. This was our reality that we live with and we know she's gone, yet, she's not. And I think people, a lot of people who've lost and suffered so that it's a very natural reality to empathize with.

-You never give the feeling I don't know the way you talked about her. You know, you're thinking what I Ivy think?

-Well, You know, it's very interesting, when you say the way you talked about her. My entire family told Ivy how we felt, and knew these things about her when she was alive. This was not something that we say because she died. This was the reality we were very aware. She was very special.

-Do live you life and your way that you wish well next proud?

-I hope so. I think about deadline. I feel in my sisters' feel that we're living it for her as well. So when I enjoy or I'll achieve, I always think to myself, what she has been doing at this time and I'm wanna doing it for her, and I hope she's a proud.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Elynne Chaplik Aleskow is founding general manager of public television station WYCC and the distinguished professor emeritus at Wright College. Her essay was recorded at Fourth Priest Baptist Church in Chicago, as part of the special events sponsor by WBEC, and it appears in the book, ThisIbelieve, “on love”.

Next week we'll share another essay recorded that evening in Chicago. If you like to write an essay about the core belief that guides your life, submit it to our series. Go to the website: thisibelieve.org.