Posted: Nov 20, 07 11:36am

REFLECTIONS of MY SISTER

It startles me always - those times I glance in the mirror and I see her looking back at me. Often, though unaware, my mom's glance at me turns into a yearning memory, as though my face is a book she cannot put down. I try not to notice but I notice.

My laugh, my voice, my smile, my sorrow, my pain is hers. All we shared in life, I now share alone yet, unexplainably so, with her - my sister.

In the corners of my mind, the crevices of my heart, the broken places in my soul, there she is. She is woven into my being - connected as the umbilical cord of mother and child. Yet this cord cannot be severed. Every step, every thought, every tear, every prayer - she is there.

Loss takes us places we often do not want to go. Loss shoves us back into what was - then pushes us into the present of what is not.

She taught me to cut with scissors, to hold a crayon between my fingers. She slipped me off to school with her one day under a false notion of "little sister day". She boasted over me.

"I love to hear you play the piano". "You play beautifully". "I just love you". "I love that we look alike". Phrases I remember from her. A light kiss given out of a heart of love and then she would say "We are double sisters".

I cannot escape but would I if I could? No. The same blood pulsing within our veins though hers now is still.

Loss is loss no matter how we lose that one we love. Time is time regardless of the clock we gaze upon.

But a heart love is just that. Heart strings entwine with memories sweet of those who have gone, yet remain in every breath we take.

In the midst of the Holiday season, a baby boy is born. I wonder if she has caught a glimpse of him - her grandson. When I hold him in my arms I will kiss him and speak her name. He will look at me and there he will see her. It is a joyful time - yet loss still has a way of slapping us a little harder during this most celebrated time of the year.

I will set a place for my sister, and the others we both loved, that have followed her away from this earth. I will retrieve a laughable memory, share it with someone. For a time, loss will take me back to Christmases past. The tears will come. I will let them linger for a time drying on my skin. I understand. I know that grief cannot exist without love just as living cannot exist without leaving. Then I shall stand, renewed, and give thanks for having had a sister whose reflection I see in my mirror.

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My sister, Sherry (on the left) with me.

Me & My Sister