Sisters

If this was a leap year, today would be one of my sister's birthday. We used to joke that even though she was nine years older than me, I was technically older than her because of the actual birthdays. She was one of my 3 older sisters, the youngest of them. Their father was killed in an accident when they were small. I liked to say I was an only child with 3 sisters. There has always been the 4 of us for as long as I can remember. Until 2005, just after Thanksgiving, when my sister died of cancer. Losing a sibling is a jolt.

She had lived in CA for most of her adult life with her family. She graduated from college as a x-ray tech, met her husband in GA and  since he as an AF pilot, moved several times before CA. She quit working for awhile and took care of her son and daughter. When her son was in his teens, she went back to school and earned a double-masters and started working on her Phd but found it too stressing to be away from her family. She started teaching at a local college and really loved it. She taught anger-management, which if you knew how much of her anger I saw growing up, you'd know how funny that was! (We worked that out long ago!)

I would go visit them in IL and baby-sit my niece during the summer and at Christmas. The fringe benefit was being introduced to some cute guys by her regular baby-sitter!

The last time she came home was in 2003, for our mother's funeral. She stayed with my sister in FL, so I didn't get to spend much time with her. And, at the time, I didn't know that cancer was on its way. Even after I knew, I wasn't prepared for the phone call that said she was in the hospital and time was running out. And shortly thereafter, she was gone. It was no longer the 4 of us, no more jokes about how old she was, just an ending.

Three months later, her husband also died. She had spent the past decade or so looking after him with heart disease.

One of my favorite things to do when we were all under the same roof, was to make the phone ring and sit down and listen to my sisters running through the house, fighting over who was going to answer the phone! Then I'd hear my name screamed and would have to run for cover!

I still have a hard time believing she's gone. She was the one who ate healthy, did yoga and was so proud of how good she looked.

I miss my sister.