"Happy 82nd Birthday Aunt Pearl"!
There's not a day that goes by that I wish I could go to that red door, and open it to yell "Aunt Pearl' and hear you respond with my name. But truth be told , I still do it without any shame. I know you're not there, because it's been 4 years since you've been gone. But I still listen, hoping, and praying that all of this is still a bad dream, and you'd respond. Well to make myself laugh [because I know you're shaking your head and laughing at me too], I yell at the top of my lungs anyway "A-U-N-T P-E-A-R-L", and go running up those green shaggy steps. For a split second, I'm in a moment in time as I turn the corner at the top of the stairs, thinking I'm about too get one of your "make-it-all-better-hugs" as you're sitting in your favorite big comfy grey rocking chair. As I am still in that mind-set, my heart is racing in that moment in time, I could almost hear you say with a chuckle and a smile, "Gurl, why you got too be so loud, I know you love me, and so does the whole wide world"! But then my heart breaks all over again, and reality hits. Your favorite big comfy grey rocking chair is still there, but your not sitting in it. The tears start all over again as they do every time. But, I sigh with half a smile, because I know your smiling down at me. But not because I'm sad, but because you can still see how much I still love and miss you so much, as I reminisce of you hugging me tight, while I sit in the quietness of your loving home in your favorite big comfy grey rocking chair. <3
"I miss you so much Aunt Pearl"--Love you forever and always, until the end of time.