My Sister

May I say she was a slip of a child, well I will because she was. She was funny, she was everything to me, she was my confidente, the one person who I totally trusted with my little girl secrets, my fears. The family dynamics in my early life were not the Dick & Jane of long ago although I wonder what that would have been like. I lived in the country with my grandparents as my father was in the army and gone much of the time. My mother worked in the city and when dad came back home, they would meet up and then come pick me up. Those times were so precious as I was so excited to see them both. There were a few of us like this, my cousins and I who went to stay with other aunts and uncles when my grandmother passed away when I was three. Call me confused too because I thought she was my mom and my cousins my brother’s and sister’s. Funny!

Let’s get back to my cousin who I called a sister, Julia was her name and we were always together, thick and thin. Her mother Flora was to pass away in the middle 60’s leaving little Julia with no mother, no father but she had us, she had me. In all this my mother had divorced my father and remarried  and we lived that life I was yearning for, the stability everyone needs to grow emotionally. My stepfather and mother decided to take in Julia to come live with us forever and I was so freaken excited that I cajoled them into picking her up and soon. My auntie had her and they were in a far off town, trying to make money to feed her family so we would have to wait until they came back. My mother received a phone call one night. Julia had passed away. She had contracted pneumonia after spending some time out in the cold.

You know that feeling when someone so close leaves you, when they pass away. It tears a part of your heart out. You try to make deals with God to bring them back, crying all the while, so desperate. And so the years went on and the feeling was always there and I would think of her time to time. I still do. Time passes and the hurt diminishes and now I think of the fun stuff we use to do. She always has my heart…always.

I have always had many people who I met that had gifts that would pass on to me that they would see a little girl with me, with short hair and a cowlick, much like Julia, wearing a long dress much to big for her. My theory about the dress was the one she wore in when she was buried, that can only be. So many to tell me that she is always there. I have to think that this why I have childlike qualities and this is due to her. To add to this my father who passed in 1986 is seen with me wearing a army uniform and my grandmother Julia wearing a long dress and her scarf around her head as well. All three travelling with me and me without a clue until my early 30’s. Boggles the mind now, doesn’t it. Believe that Spirit is always with you, giving you signs and they all have there own, you just have to ask.