The Final Countdown

An almost ten year, really tough struggle has ended for us ... unless some God forsaken unexpected lost shoe drops in the next twenty four hours.

Our life has been a mess for well over two years with Tim living first in Texas and then Orlando while we were all still here.


Tomorrow we all load up together and all go to Orlando together. I've heard that's what families do.

This is what my  family used to do. Take photos of us three kids on the side of our newly bought used station wagon while looking like orphans...and smiling.

I'm leaving my sister tomorrow. I'm leaving my best friend. I'm leaving someone who has been my mother since 1977.

Simply put... am leaving half of myself.

I think this is the last photo of us three kids taken while both parents were still alive.

Here's the kicker.

I'm moving away from one of my Sib's and closer to the other.

It's a Catch 22.

When your sister was the Homecoming Queen at RHS in the Fall of 1970...  I knew as a ten year old they sure crowned the right one.

She's the epitome of perfection as a human being.

She knows me and still loves me.

She tells me when she thinks I'm wrong but loves me anyway.

She's come to my rescue a thousand times and never complained once.

Cindy is the most important person in my life besides my husband and kids but been in my life long before all of them. Oh, I love my brother too but he never had a menstrual cycle so he loses points for that.

How do you leave someone who has saved you mentally and emotionally?
How do you leave someone who has kept you going and made you smile in even your darkest moments?

We've put off the tears for as long as we could. I'm moving tomorrow and away from her.

She came over for dinner tonight and was as usual an awesome time. When I hugged her goodbye in our driveway, I held her as tightly as I could.

She knows it... I know it.

Our fifty six year run as besties living less than thirty minutes apart is done.

I've never met a person more good hearted, accepting and hardworking. Three attributes I daily strive for, thanks to her lifetime influence.

I'm sad but glad. I'm happy but worried.

I just hope she knows how extraordinarily grateful I am to have had her close by for all these many years, especially the last hard decade.

The beauty of it all is that at least I still have a sister.