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Fifteen years ago today my sister, Helen Beegle, passed away — Aug. 8, 2006. She will always be a gift from God. She affects me every day.

She was No. 5 of eight children born between 1950 and 1965 — it was the Baby Boom on steroids. She was the second of four girls. She was the only sibling who was left-handed. And she was the only one who didn’t go to kindergarten! I can’t remember why, but she didn’t go — poor kid.

She was not an exception to the norm in our house that everyone was somewhat goofy with a weird, almost twisted sense of humor that often only our immediate family would understand. The funny bone that we kids inherited clearly came from Mom’s genes, and she would say she gained her sharp wit from her dad, my Grandpa Jose Garay. What a wisecracker he was!

Helen’s personality stood out in ways that she became the butt of innocent jokes, targeted for her purported naivete, easy humiliation/persuasian, prissiness, her refusal to use foul language, occasional forgetfulness, ability to lose things, being left-handed, and just being silly like the rest of us. We would blame it on the fact she didn’t go to kindergarten! She could never live down the kindergarten thing. But, in actuality, Helen’s entire being was all about grace and elegance; we all knew it, appreciated it, and adored her for it. And she was hardly dim: she was a serious, accomplished student in all her academic endeavors. A hard worker, always; laziness, never. Sloth was not in her vocabulary.

In junior high (she attended Our Lady of Mercy School in Merced) she took part in 4-H, raising a sheep or two as her projects. She liked horses, and she seemed like a natural to ride them with her gentle, caring nature. She helped take care of Lady, a Quarter horse we had on the farm, when she was a preteen.

Helen played a key role in the siblings’ production of a stop-motion silent movie, made with Mom’s Super 8 camera which she used to take dozens of movies of the kids over the years. The movie, which included starring roles from Fred and Billy, was called “The Funny Farm.” The Three Stooges could only wish to have gotten a crack at this small-screen clown show.

School, sports, arts

Helen graduated from Merced High School in 1975. She attended Merced College, then College of Notre Dame, earning a bachelor’s in English. One summer before she went to CND, she studied German at the Monterey Institute of Foreign Languages. Her strong Catholic faith would play a part in taking her to CND in Belmont. She played on the tennis teams at all three schools. Back at home, Helen and I share an engraved bench at Stadium ’76, the football stadium at Merced College, after Dad purchased two personalized benches — one with Helen and my names on it, the other reading William Hoffknecht Family. 

Later in life she studied at Chabot College in Hayward, earning a certificate in medical records technology.

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During her high school years, Helen and other students were sent home early during a stretch of racial rioting at Merced High, probably 1974. The outbreak of violence was happening all over the country. I was pretty young, but I do recall her being a bit shaken over the whole thing — the weapons and hard-core clashes on campus — it was nasty and scary.

In 1981 she arranged to take Mom and us younger ones to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., which she had attended several times as part of a group from Merced College. Our older sister, Carmen, also has a special place in her heart for Ashland, herself having made a number of similar trips prior to Helen’s voyages.

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Music she liked? Well, Elton John was a big favorite in our house when we were kids, and Helen would sing songs like “Daniel” in a weird, silly high pitch, just to be goofy and annoy, or actually, entertain us. Billy and Fred especially would get a big kick out of her. She also dug soft rock like Barry Manilow, Gordon Lightfoot and Abba. I remember going to two concerts with her: Jackson Browne and Orleans at Santa Clara University, and Abba at the Concord Pavilion. Helen also listened to classical music, later in life attending the Carmel Bach Festival a number of times. She played clarinet in high school and trombone in the Merced College Jazz Band.

Notable TV shows she liked? “Dark Shadows,” “Lost In Space,” “The Waltons,” “The Big Valley” and “Here Come the Brides” are some of the key ones I remember. And a few daytime soaps I could name, but won’t! By the way, she loved the Olympics, both Summer and Winter Games. I remember she especially loved watching figure skating.

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Making a racket

Helen played tennis right-handed. When playing softball, she would bat left-handed. When she kicked a ball, she would kick with her right foot. When writing, she’d write with her left hand.

In the early 1970s she learned tennis in Merced under the tutelage of Fred Ferguson, a longtime local tennis instructor. At some point, Helen thought I would like to learn to play, so we arranged for Ferguson to take me on as a student as well. I was 9 years old! I didn’t realize until years later how fortunate I was to have had private individual lessons on Saturday mornings with Ferguson, an older gentleman who was already well into his senior years, perhaps his 80s. But, as he would stand across the net on one of the far-end courts at Merced College, his back and knees slightly bent from age and likely decades of playing tennis, Ferguson would feed me forehand after forehand, backhand after backhand, volley after volley. With every stroke, he’d pound footwork into your head. His instruction would leave a lifetime impression on me. It was truly a gift from Helen.

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A few years later we would have our own one-on-one battles on the courts at Merced College. We could get some ferocious rallies going between us. But Helen always kicked my portly butt, even though I was a decent player by the time I was about 15. (Don’t ask me about not making the tennis team at Merced High – I could explode with rage as this, and my freshman-year experience playing JV basketball as a plumpster, are the type of vile, stank memories that make for a lifetime of scars and deep wounds … )

Trips to Houston, Seattle

Helen lived with her husband Bruce outside of Houston for a number of years. She was playing tennis for a local club near Katy, where they lived. I visited them in fall of 1987 for a week, during which I experienced almost nonstop rain and nasty humidity. She bought me an hourlong tennis clinic session with a pro at her club. The pro, named Peter, had an Australian accent; he asked me what part of my game I wanted to work on, and I said my serve (It’s My Serve, my blog name, remember?) He immediately figured out what I was doing wrong and we did drills to try to correct the problems. Helen and Bruce took me to downtown Houston, where we had great BBQ food; we also hit the Galleria shopping center and the Houston Zoo. We went to a Rockets-Sonics game at the Summit – yes, a different era indeed — Hakeem Olajuwon was playing; World B. Free, Ralph Sampson, also in the house. Later that week Helen and Bruce drove me down to Galveston, which was very cool to walk around downtown. The sea walls there were quite a thing to see as the strong Gulf winds were whipping the coast, which I guess is pretty much the norm, actually.

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In 1990 Helen arranged a trip to New Mexico: Mom and I would meet her there, and we would spend about a week in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos; we’d also go to Chimayo, and take a trip to the Sandia Peak Tramway. She was about three months pregnant with Lilly. It was a lovely trip, and Mom really had fun.

Helen and Bruce moved to Enumclaw, a town about an hour southeast of Seattle, a couple of years later. I went with Mom to visit them in November 1993; Lilly was not even 3 years old. We went lots of places, including taking a ferry ride to Whidbey Island; the Pike Place Market, Monorail and Space Needle. We also went inside the cavernous Kingdome for a holiday arts and crafts fair — this was less than a year before a few large ceiling tiles famously fell inside the place (whew, dodged a bullet), which eventually was demolished in 2000. Helen took me to a Sonics-Bulls game at the Seattle Coliseum, where we had standing-room-only tickets on Horace Grant Goggles Night. I’m pretty sure the Sonics’ Sasquatch mascot was there, jumping on trampolines and stuff. Oh yeah, Michael Jordan had suddenly retired about a month earlier. Wouldn’t be seeing him; damn!

https://products.kitsapsun.com/archive/1993/11-17/287969_sonics_95__bulls_94__airless_bu.htm

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I visited Helen in Seattle again, in 1999, on a somber occasion: she was recovering from surgery after a cancer diagnosis. I spent a week helping her with housework, cooking and shopping, driving around her bright green Honda Civic hatchback.* And she still managed to take me a few places, as she felt obligated to for some reason. We went to the complex of locks in Seattle’s Salmon Bay, and she took me to see the outside of the Mariners’ new baseball stadium (now T-Mobile Park) which had just opened that summer. 

(*That car, which I called the Little Green Hornet, was catlike as it seemed to have nine lives: it was stolen, and recovered, three (3) times in Seattle, the last time being when Lilly owned it after Helen’s death. Another time it was struck by a hit-and-run driver at Mom’s condominium parking lot in Menlo Park, but the jerk was caught because a resident of the complex saw the whole thing out their window. That’s not all: the Green Hornet had survived another earlier theft attempt, this time at Eric’s house in Newark. But it was Coco, the family’s Australian Shepherd mix dog, who barked like crazy, sounding the alarm to the entire cul-de-sac. Good girl, Coco!)

Her battle, her sacrifice

It would be just a few years later – about 2002 – when Helen had an expensive blood test (like, $6K) to conclude what we had long suspected: that a breast cancer mutation runs in mom’s side of the family. (Mom passed away in 1997, after her second bout with breast cancer.) The test would become cheaper for other family members, once the suspect mutation has been pinpointed. So in 2004 I was urged by a doctor to have the test done, and I also was positive for having the BRCA1 mutation. It meant I was at much higher risk for breast and ovarian cancer. In Helen’s case, it already was ovarian, and her odds were not good. But, my God, did she put up a fight. An unbelievable fight. She was not expected to live beyond perhaps two or three years, but she survived about seven after her diagnosis. It was a stunning effort in strength, hope, faith and love to keep herself going for her entire family. That extends to her cousins, who also were able to test more easily for the BRCA1 mutation, since the specific mutation had been identified. It was groundbreaking, important, and critical for us all. My brothers were tested, which in some cases led to testing of their children. Helen sacrificed for us, set the stage for us. What a beautiful gift.

In my case, it was truly more than a beautiful gift – it was a lifesaver. Armed with the knowledge that I was a BRCA1-positive mutant, I could now make decisions to prolong my own life. In May 2004 I underwent a complete hysterectomy, which supposedly would reduce my own risk of getting breast cancer by 50 percent. The surgery showed that I had early-stage endometriosis. So all the better that I had the surgery to remove the ovarian cancer risks. However, thing is I wound up getting breast cancer anyway, in November 2009. Being a BRCA1 mutant is not for the fainthearted. But I was lucky: my cancer was caught very early, and I was able to go through a clinical trial at Stanford that included chemo, double mastectomy, radiation and follow-up plastic surgery. The latter part has not gone well for me, with radiation’s effects mostly to blame, and, well, I still endure the horrible cosmetic fallout of all this 10 years on. BUT … I am cancer-free. I’m alive.

There were a few other memorable places I went with Helen: Yosemite Valley, late 80s, in January: we hiked the trail to Vernal Falls with snow on the ground. It was a great time. We didn’t go all the way, just to the bridge. Much later, about 2004 when she was battling cancer, we took Lilly on a snowboarding trip up near Strawberry past Pinecrest Lake. We also took Lilly to Yosemite, perhaps that year, and stayed in Housekeeping Camp, where we rafted lazily in the slow-moving Merced River.

Planning for her care

It was this time period when I was in a position to buy the Del Rey Oaks condo I was renting. The owner wanted to sell, and my two-year lease would be up in September 2004.  A similar scenario had just happened to me at the previous condo I rented on Dela Vina Avenue in Monterey, where I made the mistake of signing a one-year lease (2001 to 2002; I moved into the place about two weeks before 9/11). Sure enough, 13 months later (2002) I had to move again because that owner was selling: in fact, I had to show the place to potential buyers. If I had had a crystal ball, I would have bought that condo instead of the pricier Del Rey Oaks place. But living in DRO would be fate, and it turned out better all around as I decided to buy the place with a lot of help from Carmen. Our top priority and concern: Helen needed a place to live in the end. She was long divorced, and essentially on her own. She knew she was dying, and wanted desperately to be with Lilly, who was in junior high at the time. In 2003 Helen rented an apartment in Merced for about a year and a half, and Lilly attended McSwain Elementary School. It became clear that Lilly was happier in Seattle, and her return there would be inevitable, as she could live there with her father. Also, Helen was seeing doctors in the Bay Area, and was driving there regularly from Merced. It was really too much for her. 

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In early 2005, after I had purchased my condo in fall 2004, and Lilly had completed her fall semester, Helen moved in with me and my boyfriend, Daryl, in Del Rey Oaks. Lilly moved back to Seattle to live with Bruce, and was enrolled in Montessori School. Helen also was able to start seeing my hematologist/oncologist in Monterey, as she needed a new doc to eliminate trips to the Bay Area. I think she was still having chemo treatments during this time. So it was a much better situation for her, having everything nearby and all. But her condition would slowly deteriorate over the next 18 months. And she would miss her daughter terribly, but the truth was that she couldn’t care for Lilly on her own anymore. My condo was a 2 bd/2 ba, so Helen had her own bedroom and bathroom. The year 2005 was fairly normal: she was still able to get around on her own and get outside. Daryl and I took her to Point Lobos. Carmen visited, and we took her to Big Sur – I think we went to Nepenthe. Later that year we all had Christmas together.

But it was not a happy time. In fall 2005, the family was stunned to learn that our brother Eric, 53, had been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that, just a few years later, would claim two more brothers, Billy and Fred. Pulmonary fibrosis would later turn up, though not as severe, in eldest brother Ed, who in 2016 died at age 66 from a number of health conditions.

Eric’s case was severe, sudden and, as we eventually learned, untreatable and terminal. During the holidays I was unable to see him at a Bay Area hospital because he was susceptible to infection, and we couldn’t be around him. This was unbelievably heartbreaking. Eric would eventually be taken to the ICU at Stanford, and it was determined that we would “pull the plug” on his life. The time and place for ending his life was set, and his siblings and other family members, including my boyfriend Daryl, stood around him in a circle in the ICU and watched him pass. This was in February 2006. Helen wasn’t there, but she did make it to Eric’s funeral in the Bay Area. The loss of our No. 2 brother was sudden and shocking. We still ache for him.

Her last few months

During 2006 we cared for Helen as she grew thinner and weaker. Daryl cooked, did laundry and other chores for her while I went to work at nights at the Monterey Herald. He and Helen would watch classic movies and sports together. I was happy he was there to provide support, love and companionship.

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By summer it was clear her time was running out, and she would not survive but a few months. She had visits from extended family members, and she was so very happy to see them all. I had a professional dilemma on the horizon: I was selected to attend a highly regarded Knight Foundation copy editing institute, set for July at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My boss at the Herald had me apply for this fellowship, and I was among four copy editors from California (others were from the SF Chronicle, Stockton Record and Fresno Bee) chosen to attend the weeklong conference. My issue: Should I not go? What if Helen’s condition deteriorates quickly while I’m there? Helen would assure me that I should go, she’d be OK, she said. I was expected to attend, so I went, and everything went well: I checked in with Daryl every day on how Helen was doing as I sweated it out in North Carolina’s July humidity for a week.

We moved her to hospice care in early August, taking her to the lovely Westland House care facility in Monterey. Her doctors determined it was time. Carmen spent as much time with Helen there as she could. The morning of Aug. 8, 2006, Carmen woke me to let me know Helen had just passed away a few hours earlier. She was 48 years old.

Her funeral and graveside burial were held Aug. 11 in Merced. It was officiated by the revered Monsignor E. James Petersen of the Fresno Catholic Diocese.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47220931/helen-marie-beegle

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Helen was the one who kept friends of the family informed about important things by writing letters and sending cards, and perhaps making phone calls or personal visits. She kept records of everyone’s birthday, anniversaries, kids’ birthdays, addresses, etc. Very well organized and neat. She used a label maker to make labels for her own personal files. I was quite impressed with her systems of organization.

She took pictures of my own college graduation from Fresno State in 1984 – the Polaroids she snapped are very special to me. Carmen also did some great photography that day – boy, what cool sisters I have!

Branching into the universe

In the years since I have lost my parents and six of my siblings, I have come to think of them – separately – as elements of nature. This conversion-in-my-head of my family members began with Helen, because it occurred to me that she holds the characteristics of a tree: she reaches out in all directions, with a strong base and foundation that supports her muscular branches and a full, beautiful green head of gently swaying, delicate leaves … kind of like a weeping willow. Her roots spread far and wide; she is sturdy, hardy, lovely and evergreen. She is always a joy to be around.

Eric, in this nature scene in my head, is the wind and breeze. Why? He’s strong but with a quiet, adventurous spirit and a love-filled heart. Eric, who was an architect for the County of Alameda, spent many weekends sailing with friends on San Francisco Bay. It was a sport and hobby he loved. I think of how the wind must have carried him on his many sailing outings. He just rides with it, accepting the wind’s changing directions. His athleticism is nothing new, as he played basketball and football in high school, and football at Merced College as well. Easygoing, cool, mellow Eric, how I miss you, my sweet bro.

Ed, the eldest sibling, is the mountains. He stands tall over everyone, strong shoulders, weathering many storms. Peaks, valleys … he oversees it all. Wow, just wow. He could be a towering, fatherly figure to us little ones. He can easily roar like a lion and scream like a kitten … well, he purrs a little, too. I can always feel his hands pushing on my shoulders, asking me if I am OK …

Billy, 57, who died in February 2013, is the rocks and soil, the earth, the dirt under your fingernails when you work in the rice fields. So good, so honest, so absolutely pure. A tough hombre, and a textbook definition of a gentle giant. His cremains were scattered as he wished: in the irrigation canals that led to the fields he so often worked on.

Fred, 54, who died in May 2013, is the clouds: always over our heads (hah!), lighthearted or angry, colorful and hilariously entertaining, always shape-shifting. If only I could hug the clouds. Talk about life giving you a gut punch. What I’d give for another year with you.

Rosemarie, 47, who died of breast cancer in September 2012, is the sea: she roils with waves of passion, faith, humor, intelligence and strength. When she’s calm, she’s sweetly calm and gentle. But when she’s flexing her muscles, watch out. The Kid, the baby of the family, was truly a force of nature. I was so impressed with her, loved her and admired her with all my heart.

That brings me to Mom and Dad. They take center stage in this scene.

Mom is the moon and stars. I sense this partly because she would talk about her affinity for constellations after learning about them in school in Guatemala. She is in a different stratosphere, or universe, but always twinkling within our view from below. Her star never fades, but rather, burns more brightly with time.

Dad burns the brightest of all: He is the sun, giving us his warmth and light without question or at a cost. He is selfless, strong, loving and hardworking; a solar beacon who lifts us with his brightness. Everything rotates around Dad, the center of our universes.

Our universe, down on the farm. The Funny Farm.

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