Lisa

I feel this day coming every day for the weeks prior to it every year. Today, 4 years ago my oldest sister Lisa passed away in her sleep taking an afternoon nap. She laid down with a headache and went home to Jesus.

I'm glad of today to be so busy teaching and caring for children to think about everything that happened around this time in 2004. My last moments with her, the painful shock of her news, saying goodbye at the funeral and learning to deal with the gap in my life where she had been. She was so spirited, stubborn and she lit up a room. She was a natural born leader who made straight A's without trying. She was a perfectionist who had to be in a very specific mood to hear the possibility that she might be wrong. She had very firm opinions and wasn't afraid to express them. She had the most generous heart and would do and or give anything for those she loved. She enjoyed teasing me and I even miss her teasing jokes about my size (she was 8 inches taller than me and started coloring her hair to a blond in her teen years). She had a contagious laugh that when she did came from her soul. We have the same hair, eye and skin coloring, I was just the mini version of her. I could talk about her for paragraphs and paragraphs.... 4 years later, grief feels like a lead weight on my chest, lump in my throat and a half grin for all she was and still is in the hearts of us that love her. Going by her house Saturday for my nephew's birthday was hard, it's only the second time I've been there since she passed away. I expect her to come around a corner any moment. I usually meet up with my brother-in-law and nephews at my mom's house.

Today, I have work, get a PO Box at lunch for our mail to go to between July 30th and September 15. We have bible study tonight, last chapter on Praying the Names of God. Then we will go by and see the apartment we've been graciously offered to stay at. Get more boxes as we have gone through our current supply. Billy is tackling the guest room and I am packing up my craft room right now. Billy pulled everything out of the attic. Our house is in chaos with all the boxes and half packed rooms.


[ADDED] Here I am at the end of this day. I felt the tears well up a couple of times today. First was in cpr/ choking/ first aid training the topic of seizures came up. It if had been any other time of year my mind wouldn't have gone to the images of Lisa having hers and what we all knew was necessary to help her through those times of if I had thought about it might not have brought the sting to my chest and eyes that it did today. Lisa had systemic lupus erythematosus or simply lupus. It's an auto immune condition that in her case effected her kidneys and liver. A cold for us lasts a couple days, it would last months for her and do damage to those organs. The receptors of her white blood cells got confused and attacked them instead. I don't know necessarily due to the lupus, but she also had epilepsy. Lisa spent much time in hospitals from the time she was diagnosed with lupus at 17 until she passed away at the age of 33 and she didn't want to be alone there. I have memories of sitting in hospital rooms sitting just talking or watching TV. Going to visit with Kenny and the boys and wheeling her outside so she could watch the boys play on the lawn of the hospital. I remember it was the hardest thing for me after the viewing the day before her funeral, I couldn't leave her there. I rationally and logically knew what was in that box wasn't really my sister anymore, but you couldn't have convinced my heart of that, not that day. Lisa had yearned to be a mother and after the doctor's advised her against having children due to her health, she made an enormous sacrifice that none of us can judge, she had my three wonderful nephews. She had her career and other dreams taken away due to her illness and her dream of motherhood she just couldn't let go of. I know in the end it was up to God whether they were born in to this world or not. A blog I read is about a wife that has cystic fibrosis and was told not to have children, they stopped trying and still God brought them a little girl. If it's God will, it doesn't really matter if we do it intentionally or not. God alone gives life and takes it away. It's why there are no "accidents" walking around. Maybe it wasn't the parent's plan, but it was God's. The second time I teared up was in hearing how other family spent the day honoring Lisa and the love they have for her.