She would have been 37 today.....that seems insane to me considering she is forever ingrained in my mind as a teenager.....cannot ever see quite past that.....hard to imagine her woman self.....especially her nearly 40 year old woman self.....what happens to those chapters of our lives.....the before and after....her living here with us seems like a different life.....just as my marriage does often these days......like so long ago and ethereal like, but yet a part of who I am......I think of her so often and feel her presence around us......Madeline reminds me of her sometimes......her quirky sense of humor, her intelligence......her zest for life.....all things I think of when I think of my sister.....and my sister's passing as always been a reminder that life can change so quickly.....we need to be mindful, not getting too comfortable in our normalcy.....whatever that is;-) I am wondering now if that is part of where my deep sense of gratitude came from.....my appreciation of stuff, because I felt such a sudden and stark absence of something I held so dear when she died.....I cried for days....never thinking I would stop.....just unable to imagine our lives without her here.....and yet somehow the world kept spinning......after she passed much of it is a blur.....but I do recall being in Walmart and buying supplies to make picture boards for her funeral and wanting to yell at all the people that were moving about their lives.....wanting them to just stop for one moment and understand that my sister was gone.....and their lives continuing to march on all around me, and mine feeling as if it were standing still was so surreal to me in that moment.....like didn't they know my little sister was gone? Didn't they care to just stop for one moment? All irrational but all very real.......I talk to her often and know she hears, mostly in my head but sometimes aloud.....I may stop in the cemetery today....I haven't been in years, because the truth is she isn't there.....she is everywhere, still living alongside us all just in a different way, but maybe I will stop today....Madeline has been asking a lot about her lately and was wondering about the cemetery.......the passage of time just marches on.....waiting for no one.......not stopping for the tragedies that come to find us......and I suppose that is good.....it helps to keep us all moving, going on, persisting in the face of all that finds us in this life.......today I am wishing my sister a very Happy Birthday, hope heaven celebrates such things.....and letting her know I carry her forever and ever in my heart......Cheers to 37 Stacey, wow......just wow.......
jperuso
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