Random Thoughts

One of my friends remarked to me today, “You love SO hard!”. That four word sentence encapsulates it – I love so hard .   And when a person LOVES hard, they GRIEVE hard.   They JOY hard.   They HAPPY hard.   And they CRY hard. I am thankful to feel as strongly as I feel.   But understanding that is who I am means having to make SPACE for myself.   Having to carve out time, sometimes physically on the calendar, to allow myself to feel. Today was one of those days. My sister Annette should have turned 59 years old today.   But brain cancer totally ripped her off and stole her from us last December.   Today was our first May 15 th without her.   My sister Sherry and I had planned to be together for this milestone but Covid 19 made that impossible.   So today, each in our own way, we celebrated the sister that we love, that we grieve for.   Today we celebrated ANNETTE DAY. My plan was to fill the day d...

I have been thinking a lot this past week on what seems to be an over-emphasis on FIRSTs in our culture. The first steps. The first tooth. The first born. The first time to have sex. The first haircut. The first word. The first car. The first time to roll over. First.   First.   First.   We photograph them.   We brag about them.   Heck, we even make BOOKS about them. And I have wondered why the lack of acknowledging the LASTs… Is it because the LASTs are so scary?   Too frightening to confront? The last time to drive. The last time to speak to your loved ones. The last smile The last time to walk.   To run.   To jump. The last time to shop. The last time to kiss.   To hug.   To make love. The last vacation. The last meal. If we could embrace the LASTs as much as we do the FIRSTs, would that make them more meaningful?   More tender?   Might...

Shhh, my sisters are asleep and snoring.   It’s only me still awake in this little Airbnb cottage by the sea. We are here on a little escape – some sister time.   It’s happy, it’s scary, it’s sad.   Life changes when someone you love is seriously ill.   Priorities change.   Needs change.   But love stays solid.   We had planned on going on a cruise.   Tried to plan it around treatments and doctor appointments.   But my sister Annette is weaker, and we weren’t sure being out in open water was a smart idea.   If she got sick on the boat, we would probably be tossed off in a port and hospitalized who knows where.   So, we scraped the idea of a cruise.   Then we went to a medium, who “spoke to our parents” from “the other side”, and they said (I paraphrase only slightly here): “ TAKE THE DAMN CRUISE, GIRLS! ”.   (The quotes above about “the other side” are by no means meant to belittle the messages we receiv...

Sometimes, if you are lucky, life puts things in your path that are unexpected.   Things that you would not normally choose to do. Life did that to me today. My sister Annette has wanted to go see a psychic for several years.   The first I knew of it was when both sisters were visiting us in DC, and we drove by a psychic on the main street near us, her neon sign glowing in an otherwise dark window.   “Wouldn’t that COOL to do??   Wouldn’t it be FUN to see a PSYCHIC??” Annette said from the back seat.     Ummm, no…   No, it wouldn’t be “cool” or “fun”.   It would (I jadedly thought) be one or a combination of these things:   hokey, scary, fake, terrifying, and utterly depressing if she told us something awful that was going to happen in the future.   “WHYYY would I want to know the trials and tribulations future me was going to have to suffer?” I thought.   “Can’t we just wait until the bad stuff hits and deal with it then...