My Sister’s Birthday

It started ten or fifteen days ago. I walked through the grocery store, looked up and saw the card display. Rosie’s birthday was approaching.

I’m not sure I will ever fully come to terms with losing her. I still reach for the phone to call her before it hits me that she is gone.

I struggle to remember every little thing about our life together but try as I might, I cannot remember everything. Of course, none of us remember everything. We don’t realize it until it’s too late – too late to capture the memories in some tactile way. I have a message from her on my answering machine. Every time I play it, I cry. I have a few cards and letters, but not near all the letters and cards she ever sent me. As I sit here today, I wish I had kept them all. This electronic world we live in is great, but nothing can replace the handwriting or the slow tenor of a voice you hear when you read a letter from someone you love.

After Rosie passed away, I wrote a simple blog entry entitled Rosie’s Rose. The blog was about a rose that suddenly bloomed after years of lying dormant. Today when I glanced out the back door, I saw a flash of red. There, as bright as it could be, was a rose. Rosie’s rose. I walked outside with my phone and snapped a picture. There are two roses blooming and seven buds. Never has there ever been more than one rose on this bush at one time. I guess some might say it a coincidence that this rose appeared today. Perhaps. But I believe in a spirit that lives beyond the confines of this world and I think this rose appears when I need to know my sister is with me.

Rosie, tomorrow, is your birthday. It feels strange not to pick out the perfect card to send you. Tomorrow I will feel a certain sadness when I cannot pick up the phone and call you. Even so, I am blessed to have you as my sister and I know you remain with me still.

Happy Birthday, Sissy.  I love you to the moon and back again.

A Person of Words

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I can divide people into two groups.  People of words and everyone else.

For me, I am a person of words.  What you say means something to me.  The phraseology, the inflections, the delicate choice of words.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t judge anyone.  I just find meaning in all the nuances of words.  I love the language of vocality.  I love to watch a person’s eyes when they speak.  The tenor of a particular voice is engrained in the mind forever.  I can close my eyes and remember my mom’s raucous laugh, my dad’s bass voice in the quartet at church, and I can still hear the sound of my grandmother singing ‘There Will be Peace in the Valley’ as she moved through the kitchen.  I have missed Rosie’s voice so much this week but I take comfort in remembering the sparkle in her voice.  I have one message from her on my answering machine.  Sometimes, for comfort, I back through the messages and play it just to hear her voice.

The written word to me is just as beautiful.  A person who loves words and puts them to work on paper paints such beautiful scenery.  I treasure these precious words as a rare gift and hold them close to me.  I love to write.  I’m not always prepared to write.  It’s okay though because at times like those, unprepared and vulnerable, your heart pours onto the page.  I feel through my writing.  I languish thinking of all the poets who live on through the intensity of their words.

Some people are encumbered and frightened by words.  Indeed, words are long-lasting.  I was recently reminded of that distinct possibility as I read through words I had written some 30 odd years ago.  It hurt to hear what I felt at that time and realize how wrong I was about my situation.  But in the end, it was all honest and it came from a special place inside of me.  I wish people wrote more.  I miss the exchange of letters.  It is a beautiful sharing that can be cherished again and again.

Rosie’s granddaughter wrote me a letter a week or so after the funeral.  That letter brought me such joy I cannot tell you.  It was the simplicity of the voice of a child.  A child who I know lost her precious Teedle.  Her short letter reminded me more of the value of this life we lead that most anything I have encountered these last few weeks.  She inspired me to sit down with pen in hand and write some letters to people I haven’t corresponded with in a while.  As a result, I reconnected with my dear friend Gen and my heart is aglow just knowing the joy our exchange of words will bring me.

Not everyone in my life is a person of words.  I respect that.  You have gifts too numerous to mention.  I hope that my gift is one of words even though I’ve been told I do tend to go on and on and on…….Ha!  The gift that keeps on giving.

I remember my grandmother helping me write a story about where I lived as a child.  I was so upset with her because she suggested as the last line of my story to say….’here amongst the trees and the mountains you will find my humble abode.’  Funny, I never forgot the word abode and now it rings of magic each and every time I hear it.  Thanks, Mam-Maw.  It took me years to realize the gift you gave me.