Sister

My sister-in-law. Very possibly my favorite person on the planet. Mother of four, hysterical, amazing cook, smarter than one should be allowed to be, tortured her baby brother from 1974-2000 which is when I took over as his spouse.

I can see her in her kitchen, with the Bose speakers playing public radio from atop the fridge that she hates so much (we talk frequently about it). Her feet walk her back and forth from the butcher block to the stove where she's cooking with butter, heavy cream, eggs and sugar -- as all things should be. Kids and dogs run through to the back yard, past the only recycling effort that even comes close to my own. Her Lily print skirt swishes and she just dripped bubbly water on her tshirt. I snap the ends off of beans as we talk, sing, drink and laugh. Oh, that girl's laugh is one of my favorite sounds -- it's true, throaty and alive. It's alive because she carries the highs and lows of this life as closely to her soul as I do. Carine is the sister I do not have and I don't know how I survived without her. This picture makes me happy. Truly, blissfully happy.

When we lost Becks she could not have felt heavier for us if she'd been his own mother. And when Sully left us she couldn't look at the pictures for fear her heart would literally crack with sorrow. I believe it would have.

And now she's gotten the news that she very possibly has breast cancer. A lump, that she can't even feel and not for lack of trying. Damn it. I danced for joy that I wouldn't bury another newborn this year but it's been pretty trying since that bitter salve has been rubbed in.