Tag: sisters

(#6 SHE Saga) Dad Is Dead

She is acting up tonight. Granted we had a rough time last night, and an overly complicated day, but I really can’t handle her fears, on top of my own anxiety.
I whispered to her, “Behave, little one. Please.”
The day began with a phone call from my younger sister.
We have been looking for my dad, a mentally ill, homeless, alcoholic for over thirty years. Checking for at least a death certificate, looking for closure.
My sister has had contacts in the military looking for any information for over a year and today, on Dad’s birthday, she received the information.
Dad is dead. He died alone and homeless in 2000. Buried in a poverty grave by the military.
It hit me hard, even though I had felt that he was gone, I was never sure.
My sister has his Death Certificate and his military records, and we now know where he is buried. The military is even going to put a marker on his grave.
The inner child, She, is taking it much harder than me and while closure is a relief, it’s a rough time to throw more grief into our fragile infrastructure.
Right after I heard the news about my dad, I had an appointment with a local domestic violence shelter and showing up was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I can admit to my family and my friends, my readers and myself that I have suffered and accepted abuse but reaching out to total strangers for a support group has taken me almost a year.
I made the appointment the day before my house sold and I decided to go anyway, if only for an exercise in courage and to give them a copy of my book, Women Who Think Too Much. https://books2read.com/u/md0J5d
Well, they can’t give out their address, so they gave me a meet point and told me to call them when I arrived. I made it there ten minutes before my appointment and called them. No answer.
I started to panic, but I took a deep breath and I prayed. I managed to sit there for forty minutes, calling back every five minutes. Never got an answer.
I left there disappointed, but so proud that I had overcome the anxiety to show up. She even stayed calm, which was surprising. I think she was mourning Dad and wandering in her own little world.

(# 1 SHE Saga) SHE

Thank You

Have I ever thanked you for all the nights
you sat on your cold bathroom floor
talking me into staying alive,
for praying me sober when I was lost in the swamp,
for holding me close when my heart was broken,
for standing by my side when everyone else
walked away because I was wrong?
Have I ever thanked you for never judging me,
for never giving up on me,
for seeing my beauty
when all I could see was my ugly,
for being my sister, my best friend,
my go-to person for every pain and every joy?
Have I ever thanked you for introducing me to Jesus,
for your powerful prayers
when my daughter was dead in the water,
for your face that she saw as she came up, alive?
God places angels in our lives, and you are mine.
I am me because you loved me through.
For embracing me, for accepting the mission
with all of your heart, my sister, I thank you.

…and I would throw snowballs at your bedroom window at midnight…

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I wish I lived in a little New England farmhouse with the wood stove burning and a fire in the fireplace. Beans would be cooking on the wood stove, snow would be falling outside my window and you, living right down the street.
I would sneak over and I would throw snowballs at your bedroom window at midnight so you would come out to see who it was and then I would dance in the snow under the moonlight and it wouldn’t hurt because the cold snow would make my foot pain better, and you would shiver in your doorway and say, “Get in here, you idiot!”
I would grab two icicles from your front window and dance into your warm kitchen and we would have hot chocolate with pink marshmallows and we would laugh.
We would talk for hours like when we were little girls and we would forget that we are not little girls anymore because when we are together we are just sisters. We are not old, we are not crippled, we are not grandmothers, we are not great-grandmothers (me) and we are not old ladies.
Because when we are together, we are young girls again with our future in front of us and we laugh…and I would throw snowballs at your bedroom window at midnight…

Miracles

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I am constantly, seriously blessed. Do you see the sunlight in front of me and behind me? I don’t think that is even possible. This picture was taken during a sunrise at the beach last week.
I have hundreds of pictures of flowers from this past year where the sunlight is behind the flower and it’s wrapping around to the front. I have pics and videos where the sunlight is dancing in front of me and the sunbeams are reaching down to me. I have butterflies that flit around my face and shoulders and then, they pose for pictures. I touch a plant and it bursts with blooms and growth.Three great grand-babies in a year’s span and a granddaughter due in December!
If you know me, you know how much I love babies and grand-kids, so these babies are a colossal blessing.
When you see the pics where my arms are reaching for the sky, here is what I’m doing. I am lifting everything and everyone I love up to God. I am opening my soul and inviting the power of God, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Earth and the Rain to flow into my soul, to guide my heart in all choices I make that day. I ask God to take all my pain and my burdens. I release all negative energy. I am embracing the moment and grounding myself in the power of God. (My daughter Jodie taught me this grounding exercise about 15 years ago.)
My problems don’t go away when I do this, but my stress level goes down.
It changes how I look at life that day, creating a positive glow in my heart.
Speaking of miracles, I have been asking God for a miracle. Something so big that I could really see it, something just for me. He delivered.
My baby sister Susanne talked to me this week for the first time in ten years. I don’t even know why she walked away from me to begin with and I am not going to question why she has reopened the door to her heart and invited me back in. I’m just going to love her.
Hi Susanne. You are my miracle.

Christmas For Grace

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How could one woman touch so many lives?
Mom, we all remember you in different ways and for who you were to each of us. Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, cousin, aunt and friend. I know your three daughters miss you the most because I am one of the three. Your middle daughter, Jeanne Marie, the baby for seven years until Susanne Louise, your last baby, was born. I should have resented her but; somehow, I never did. It was like getting my very own live baby doll and I cherished her. And Cherie Anne, seven years older than me, she cherished me and Susanne equally and now she tries to fill your shoes and she babies her little sisters, middle-aged little girls who want their mama, even though she misses you too.
I talked to my grand-daughter Rachel about you today and Mom, we were wondering, how your presence could have been so strong that we all feel lost without you?
Was it the way you taught us to be a lady in public, at least in front of you? Was it your always open door and open arms? Was it the way you were always there for each of us, ready to listen, never to judge? Was it your crepes, your pot roast, your home-made jams and pickles? What quality endeared you to us, made you irreplaceable? Why is it that not a day goes by that I don’t miss you; still, after nearly four years?
I have the questions, Mom, but I don’t have the answers. I would give anything for just one more hug, for one more of your smiles, to wake up in your bed as you held the world at bay. Did you know that you did that for me Mom? That I always left the world outside when I went home and walked in your door?
I didn’t have to be a wife, a mother or a grandmother, for just a while, all I needed to be was your daughter.
I want to smell Spam and fried potatoes burning in your cast iron skillet just once more, I want to watch your face light up with love when I walk in your door, just once more.
Every time I left you to fly back home, I walked backwards out your door, trying to take every smile with me, knowing it could be the last smile you gave me, but somehow I still wasn’t ready when you left this world.
Even now, I feel your arms around me when I cry Mom; the memories of your hugs are so strong.
I told Cherie that I hated Christmas because I miss you and she said you would be so mad that I hated Christmas. I know that’s true because you taught us to love Christmas and not for the gifts, God knows Dad kept us short on those, but for the traditions, the holiday cooking, the baking (especially your huge batches of Italian cookies) for the family you loved to gather around our table.
I know if you could visit me, you would, so I hope I’ll see you as I go through each day and I watch for signs that you are still near.
When I see a butterfly, I chase it, calling out, “Mom, is that you?” When a dragonfly allowed me to pick it up and hold it in my hand, before it flew away, Rachel and I both asked it, “Is that you Nana?”
I smell the wind for traces of Oil of Olay. I still pick up the phone to call you, only to set it back down, in tears. I still get excited when I see things that you love on sale. I pick them up for your Christmas stocking, only to set them back down, in tears.
All you ever wanted for your girls, your ‘beautiful daughters’ was for them to find happiness. So why do I cry every time I think of you?
Ok, Mom. I put up a small fiber optic tree and Cherie sent me the butterflies that cover it now. It’s your tree Mom.
Remember the year when I sent you the six foot fiber optic tree? You loved it so much that you sat for hours, just watching the colors change and glow. I’m going to celebrate Christmas this year and even though I do miss you so much, I’m gonna be a big girl.
Just one more thing, Mom. I want to thank you for giving us Cherie because she too is a woman who touches the lives of every person she meets and her influence, love and support are every bit as strong as yours, so although I miss you every day, I thank God and I thank you, for giving us Cherie.

Love,  Jeanne Marie