A letter to Amy

November 15, 2009


"DEATH ENDS A LIFE, NOT A RELATIONSHIP" -Robert Benchley




To be more precise, exactly eleven days following my 50th birthday, Amy, my only sister, only sibling for that matter, died on July 23, 2008,….. approximately fifteen months, 23 days, six hours and about 20 minutes ago, not that I have been keeping track! So much for the favored notion that “time flies”.


Turning 50 was not nearly a significant enough event on its own merit, I suppose. Just in case I was the rare exception to the rule and there lingered the remote possibility of sliding from my 49th into my 50th year without neurotic angst and emotional drama, my sister became very ill and died.

Before I could settle in and worry like most women with this pending birthday, about poor me facing the big 5-0, middle age, the impending wrinkle, hormone hell, looking in the mirror and seeing your mother and all other related topics, Amy, my big sister, did her damndest to distract me!

Amy, the one who actually LOVED her life, the perfect daughter, the extraordinary yet practical sister, the accomplished and level headed one would ease the dark cloud of the up and coming 50th storm for me by creating a little emotional 10 point EARTHQUAKE for my family! At least that is what it felt like to us. The theory of relativity was well at work. I can hear her saying, “Now, now, it isn’t really that terrible to turn 50 is it?” In fact, I had better be grateful for it as I know the alternative all too well.

She always did have an effective way of giving me perspective and of getting her point across. Did I mention that my sister lost her husband when she was 36 years old? Snow cat skiing in Grand Targhee on a spring day ended up as a helicopter day with my brother–in-law having a fatal heart attack. As I said, she had perspective!


Earthquakes tend to shake you to your foundation and this one did, indeed. It isn’t rhetoric you know, that there comes a definitive moment when life as you know it ceases to exist. You cannot change it, you cannot control it, (surprise, surprise you control freaks) you can only look to the future and see the long and arduous task ahead of you to keep breathing. You hope beyond hope that your grief and suffering will pass. You feel as though part of you or all of you has died with that person.



In my experience, the daily misery does pass in time (that time “not flying” issue again). Yes indeed, then you are left to cope with living for the rest of your life without this person. If this sounds difficult and depressing, that is only because IT IS!



There is a reprieve from this, however, and great news to come if you are willing to open up your mind as you had opened your heart to this person. Well this is the interesting part, you see. My sister died last year and I am certain to her great surprise that she has been beside me since that moment. My sister, you see, was not a believer in the subject of Metaphysics though I am a devotee, one of our many contrasts.



As you come back to life again and start to climb out of the abyss of loss, simply start to look for the signs! This is the key to life and death and everything crossing those lines in between. Do you remember Katherine and Heathcliff...Wuthering Heights? I chose this particular love story for my final paper in advanced English lit at University of Michigan, so many years ago. I am suspicious of coincidence. I believe that it was a destined prelude to my understanding that love and energy are on a continuum. It is the concept of love being eternal and crossing the boundaries of death.


I am talking about communication. Tune-in to the clues around you and realize that those loved ones are sending signals constantly. I am not talking about Casper or ghosts that yell BOO! Though sometimes there are things that go bump in the night. Communication, I am reminded of daily, is not restricted to those that we can see.



My sister communicates with me continually these days and no, not by cell phone! Please, give me a little credit. Though she is very into electricity lately giving me a plethora of light bulb popping, circuit breaking and flickering bulb experiences. I am hoping that my sharing these experiences and documenting her continual influence on me as I journal and journey through my days, not only fills the void left in my life but can help some of you out there as well.

You may realize and see the love around you that is still being demonstrated as well as the annoying advice that we were sometimes given and would rather not hear (Hey, I cannot be reverent through this whole blog you know)!



I feel as though I must introduce you to Amy at this point. I think that she can best be described in my last letter that I wrote to her. I realize that so many people are put on pedestals, understandably so, in the event of death and this is not the case with Amy. She was who she was and I see her honestly and accurately. She was my big sister who teased and taunted me, called me Frizoo (due to my frizzy curls in the early years), kicked me out of her room, insisted on always having the front seat, refused to let me hang out with her friends...sound familiar little sisters? She was the rock in my life, my best audience, my heart and soul and she loved me. Amy understood me, she wanted only for my happiness and she unequivocally, unconditionally loved me!



There it is in a nutshell. My Uncle said it simply. “There is Amy….and then there are the rest of us!” The oversensitive, little sister me was not very flattered to hear this as I am considered by a few to be a bit exceptional myself in some regards! But as I mulled it over, I had to agree with my Uncle. Amy was extraordinary. She defined me most, I believe, in our differences. She was a classical pianist; I was fired from piano at 16! She spoke and read French fluently, I learned only in the patisseries of Paris. Our shared humor was our greatest common ground. So perhaps in knowing her, you can better know me as well. I thank you ahead of time for your kindness and attention in reading below:





July 25, 2008





Dear Amy,



In the past few months together, you would often say, “ tell me a story Sissie”, before you’d fall asleep at night.



The story would always begin with, “I remember when”..….

So I will do that again today for you and let many of your loved ones here, listen in.



I remember you climbing into my crib and playpen when we were young. You told me recently that you used to love doing that and by the way, though you teased me so, it made me feel safer having you near, but then you had that effect on everyone.



I remember our house on Shrewsbury and then North Greenbriar, with barking Briards and such commotion , animated personalities, (aunts, uncles cousins and friends over) and like a Fellini movie…with the sound of beautiful classical music from your fingers dancing over the piano keys to Bach, Beethoven and my favorite piece, Claire De Lune.

You were always the calm in the storm.




I remember you and Dad going to the Father –Daughter dance. You wore a blue dress and ate chicken cordon blue! I was so proud of your sophistication. I told all of my friends. You were so pretty in the photo that revealed you struggling to keep those knock-knees apart and straight. They proved to be a blessing in your ski days.




I remember our countless winter weekends at Boyne Mountain, when Mom and Dad drove 5 or 6 hours to put us into the Austrian ski school. It is where you developed your love of the mountains and where you learned to carve a turn on the icy face of Hemlock... and inspired your love of European accents.



I remember watching you playing guitar on our front lawn, sitting with your long , thick, mane of hair down your back when you came home from Ann Arbor, U of M to be with us.



I remember your year abroad from Aix-En-Provence. Mom, Dad, and I would wait for your cassette tapes to arrive in the mail to hear your exquisite descriptions of exotic travel in France and other places visited.



When you finally came home after one year…we waited anxiously as you stepped off the plane. ‘a beautiful French vision with a scarf on your neck and that gorgeous smile’…. But suddenly we detected this awful odor….horrific and pungent and it was following you around. We did not want to say anything and spoil the homecoming. When we got to the car you announced “DADDY, guess what? I brought you some good special Cheese all of the way from France"…Limburger or something…how we all were hysterically laughing and thinking of the poor guy who sat next to you on the plane.



I remember old Park City days and Main Street, the white jaguar and meeting dear Dezo for the first time. He wore a raccoon coat.



I remember when you lived in, what seemed, a castle out of Camelot, in Spring Canyon, built by Dezo’s own hands. You would yell out the tall windows for Benny, your wild Black Belgian Sheepdog. It would echo over the canyons and he would come running and dive on me or whomever was visiting. As we would stand with frozen posture, you’d say, “BUT HE LOVES YOU! HE IS A HEEANDSOME MAN!" You did the same recently with your adorable, incorrigible Marley, your Portuguese water dog. You always did love unconditionally.

I remember the greatest day of your life and Dezo’s….the day Jessie was born!



I remember you flying down the mountain, always first, like a vision with skiis together so perfectly, How you’d wait patiently at the bottom for me or whoever was in your posse. In later years, I convinced you to go last, to pick me up on your way down should I fall. It was more convenient than you having to climb uphill to retrieve me. (you would always shout, GREAT RUN Sis, though I had lost my courage on the mountain years before.)



I remember your early days in Salt Lake. You, sitting on a blanket like a Hopi Indian with a serape, selling your lovely pottery at the side of the road. Do you think that your clients paying about one dollar a bowl ever realized that beneath the blanket was a classical pianist, flautist, French speaking, ski instructing artist who was also a lawyer?



But that is what is so spectacular about you Amy. Your brilliance, integrity, kindness and humor were trumped only by your modesty! You have no need to tell. It is quietly discovered as one spends time with you.



I remember your yoga classes. You decided to be a teacher and after a few weeks I inquired as to how it was moving along? “GREAT”, you replied…"I had three students!" "How much are you charging", I asked? “Two dollars a person”, you said. I calculated the total at six dollars a session and begged, "Amy do not quit your day job." But it was the task that you loved, yet you always reached your goal as well.



I remember when you and I brought Jessie to Disneyland and she met Mickey Mouse for the first time….she bowed and curtsied as though she had met the Queen of England! How we laughed about that. You then proceeded to check off every little item we’d done. "What are you doing Amy?" I asked. "I do not want to miss anything,” you said. “ If we don’t finish, I know what we need to see next time”. That was you, efficiently charting out your next adventure, not missing a minute of what life has to offer.



And then there was your, Robert, your love, whom you cherished. Devoted, and generous, enhancing your experience, giving and sharing a wonderful life with you and Jessie. Robert helped to realize all of your dreams, even a pottery studio and a position as a full time Travel Agent who booked only for the journeys of Amy, Robert and Jess!


I remember Amy, that a few years ago, we sat together at an Indian restaurant and spoke about life. I lamented that I had not accomplished what I had wanted to do…that I had wanted to write and publish stories left untold, that I had failed my own expectations.


You said, “How wonderful that at this point in life, you have a chance to embark on something new that you love and is important to you! You have the whole rest of your life to do it, to achieve your goal and to realize your dream!"



I asked, “And what about you Amy, what do you want to do?" You replied,
“I just want to do more of the same! Ski, river raft, do my pottery and be with Robert, Jess and Willie.”



I said, “HOW WONDERFUL FOR YOU THAT YOU HAVE LOVED YOUR LIFE SO MUCH, THAT YOUR ONLY DESIRE IS TO SIMPLY CONTINUE TO DO MORE OF THE SAME!"

You, indeed, have loved life Amy and every wonderful creation of nature that life has offered as well.



Some People have a spirit that continues to grow and becomes so great and expansive that it can no longer be contained in the physical vessel.

YOU are such a spirit Amy……

And now you are FREE!



Free to sail with the wind across the Blue Sea….


Free to Race down the Rushing Rivers that you loved so much……



And when we see a Majestic Mountain top, capped with snow, glistening in the sun,

We will not despair! Instead, we will close our eyes and picture you, our Amy,

with open arms and ski poles in hand…with your big, beautiful smile sparkling in the sunshine.


We will know in our hearts that you have been given an eternal lift pass and that each and every run will be explored......



Particularly if it is a Powder DAY.





With all of my love and light,

Forever and always remembered…



It has been a privilege to be your little sister,

S.



p.s. I hope to be hearing from you soon.




Well, there it is, the last letter that I wrote to Amy. Did you catch the p.s. by any chance? Well, my sister was certainly listening and I have been hearing a lot from her.


Love and Light,
Buddish Girl







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