Dear Christine,
They say that one never dies if someone still holds you in their heart. You will never die for me. I will cherish and nurture that part of my heart that fills me with the memory of you.
You were a part of my life since infancy, having been born 3 months apart to 2 sisters in a close family. We played and fought as children, we bloomed into womanhood together, we had our babies together and even when you distanced yourself with your grief of adulthood, you came back. “WE” were better, stronger. Even though we were half expecting the usual flareups, we no longer felt the need to scrap.
It was enough, infinitely more than enough, just to be together and in together, we could LAUGH! Oh, how we laughed, more and harder together than with anyone, except when we had our college roommate reunions. What better lifetime gift can you share with someone than that? Part of it was your unique ability to laugh from the deepest recesses of your being. Melanie called it your “Cackle!” and it was positively infectious. You could find humor in the most random of occurrences and bring us along with your often twisted point of view. I guess this is because you often lived by the beat of another drummer and we loved banging that drum for comic relief before going back to the mundane.
We could talk about anything without fear of judgement or reprisal and in later years, I let you ramble about the lost years that you kept so much to yourself. Among our ramblings we hashed out our life’s exit plan wishes. No doubt Sistah (you loved when I called you that), no doubt Sistah, your exit was exactly as you would have wanted, no drama, quick and painless. As you have always been on the scatterbrained side, that characteristic, like your nose and ears, was growing with age and you asked me to catch you when you were behaving too much like Aunt Clara, the ultimate scatterbrained old lady from a 60’s sitcom.
I am glad for you but, greedily, I wish we could have had more time………… But alas… you keep coming back to me like a fairy on the tip of a crescent moon. When I was picking out pictures, I listened to you on those you most definitely did not want, we did argue about a couple to which you gave into and, of course, we laughed about many……
No Sistah, you will never die for me. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for the friendship. Thanks for the laughter. Thanks for the love. Rest in peace but come often, sit on your moon and tell me something that will make me laugh……