What I remember

...about Deeply Missed Sister

1. Her hands. Her hands, and long, graceful fingers were so distinguishable. For me, it was the only recognizable part of her in the casket.

2. As a mother. She was a wonderful and devoted mother to her boys, just loving and caring for them in a way I admired so much. She would be so tickled with her grandsons, and revel in that role.

3. Her photography! She took lots of mediocre snapshots with her Kodak Instamatic (or it may have been a 110). But she was the one in the family that took a lot of photos and got them developed. And she organized them! And now, we have her albums, with names and dates on the backs of the photos.

4. As an aunt, she loved her nieces. She adored her nieces. She could just eat them up. And I know she would be proud of them all today.

5. Her faith. She had a Christian faith that ran deep and strong, and raised her boys to have the same.

6. Glamorous. In fact, she got all the family’s glamour…sucked it out of all us, I am pretty sure! She was the cheerleader, the homecoming queen, TWA stewardess (with Wisest Sister). She lived and vacationed in famous places, and did fancy things, and always looked just spiffy. When the family would get together re-unionizing, the rest of us would be in jeans, and tees or sweats, with jogging shoes…and she would have on a belt and a tucked in shirt, with her hair styled.


7. Aerobics, and how she just determined that was what I needed to do after my first baby was born. Paid my way to the first clinic, and walked me through what I needed to start teaching classes way back when. Such a boon for me and I don’t think I ever let her know how much I appreciated it.
8. Trendy craftiness. She knit with broomstick size knitting needles, for example.

9. The sound of her voice and her laugh, and how that changed when she went on oxygen.

10. Her grief at the loss of her son. She taught us so much.


11. Her illness, and how our definitions and references and understandings about life, and health, and living, and death changed. Figuring out that others don’t know and likely won’t understand unless they have had the experience. Seeing that each deal with it on their own level.

12. Saying that when she goes, many of the things she holds valuable will suddenly become worthless, and the things she thinks nothing of, will suddenly become valuable to us. I held onto a moving box with her handwriting for years. Just because it had her handwriting on it.

13. Her death as a wakeup call, for looking at how I was living, if I had only 10 more good and healthy years left.

P.S. Found the crocus blooming in my yard this afternoon.