Square Roots
Oct. 7th, 2009 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI've been mindful all day, even before both of my nieces noted it earlier, that today marks 21 years since their mother, my oldest sister, died. While I remember this day and her birthday every year, this one occasion maybe strikes me the most personally, since when she died, she was the same age- 49- that I am now.
Forty-nine. Seven squared. How utterly mathematical, and still just as utterly unfair.
Just over three years later, she'd have welcomed her first niece into the world, just as forty years ago this month, I welcomed my first niece into the world thanks to her. Both that daughter, and the second, now have children of their own, of whom she'd be even prouder (while spoiling all of them the rottenest).
She'd have been part of our mother's difficult final years and part of all the pitfalls and pratfalls we've all experienced over the years, but also part of every moment of joy.
Whether or not she managed to outlive her husband, she would have been with him every step of his own difficult way in the end.
In a hair beyond a month from now, I will reach the golden milestone of 50 that she just missed. Already I've lived a few months longer than she managed to, but there'll be a certain extra bittersweetness next month when the odometer turns without her in the here and now.
Except that she is. In our memories, our prayers, and even our pictures, God help us-
There I am at 21. We were born 21 years apart. Now she's been gone 21 years. Threes and sevens- all significant numbers in heaven, where I'm sure she's wishing that I stop being so maudlin and go play in traffic or something.
So tomorrow I will. But not without one final remembrance and expression of love for her, and for those whose lives she touched.
Forty-nine. Seven squared. How utterly mathematical, and still just as utterly unfair.
Just over three years later, she'd have welcomed her first niece into the world, just as forty years ago this month, I welcomed my first niece into the world thanks to her. Both that daughter, and the second, now have children of their own, of whom she'd be even prouder (while spoiling all of them the rottenest).
She'd have been part of our mother's difficult final years and part of all the pitfalls and pratfalls we've all experienced over the years, but also part of every moment of joy.
Whether or not she managed to outlive her husband, she would have been with him every step of his own difficult way in the end.
In a hair beyond a month from now, I will reach the golden milestone of 50 that she just missed. Already I've lived a few months longer than she managed to, but there'll be a certain extra bittersweetness next month when the odometer turns without her in the here and now.
Except that she is. In our memories, our prayers, and even our pictures, God help us-
There I am at 21. We were born 21 years apart. Now she's been gone 21 years. Threes and sevens- all significant numbers in heaven, where I'm sure she's wishing that I stop being so maudlin and go play in traffic or something.
So tomorrow I will. But not without one final remembrance and expression of love for her, and for those whose lives she touched.
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Date: 2009-10-08 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 05:06 pm (UTC)♥
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Date: 2009-10-08 05:23 pm (UTC)If you think that looks bad, you should see the ones from my early 40s where it got into serious Old Hasidic Rabbi mode and I pretty much had to lose it. Eleanor had never known me without it and thinks I'm kinda cute now.