Dear Pat.
It seems impossible that you are no longer physically with us and that we shall be deprived of your warmth and your company.
My whole life seems to have been spent with you, even when we were separated by miles or by our different lives.
When I was little I often used to sit on the floor to play. You were ten and I was five. Often you would kneel across my chest and tickle my ribs making me giggle until I would wet myself.
We were all a mixture of Mum and Dad but we all shared Mum’s sense of the ridiculous. I recall when I was in my early teens, sometimes when I was feeling glum,you would sing silly words to operatic arias, just to make me laugh!
When you used to go camping with Roy and Stephen and Karen, sometimes I was able to join you with my own tent. It was so lovely having family around me. Usually my camping trips were spent with the Camping Club, driving to the site and making friends when I arrived. My car only had one seat so I had to travel alone. One year when I went with you, Mum and Dad came too. We had some laughs that week, (Mostly at poor old Dad’s expense).
Because I was away at residential school we grew up largely apart, only seeing each other during my school holidays. As a teenager you had many girlfriends and you were also very popular with the boys.
It was only after I reached adult-hood, looking at old photos of you taken during the 1950s that I realised how gorgeous my big sister was, in her teens and twenties and why the local lads were like flies round a jam-pot.
After we were grown up you were married and I was still at home with Mum and Dad. I have never believed in sitting at home waiting for life to come to me, much preferring to go and get it for myself. This usually involved taking a few risks. Inevitably sometimes I would hurt myself.
Although the Strongs are a ‘close’ family we don’t live in each other’s pockets but you were always there for me in times of need dashing round dressing wounds and doing what was necessary.
I vividly recall the time that I had a fall and broke my thumb. I was able to crawl over to the phone and call you but when you arrived I wasn’t able to get up and open the front door. You had to climb through the window. This was in the days before you were regularly wearing trousers and must have been a treat for the neighbours!
You took me to hospital to have the break set. Mum was at work so every day for several weeks you picked me up in your car, gave me a meal and kept me company until I was well enough to continue unaided.
When Frank became Sammi ten years ago, I know that this was a difficult time for you but after you’d had space to adjust and we had talked you were still very much my big sister. The Christmas gifts of trinkets and clothing that you gave to me are a testimony to this. I often wonder whether you secretly liked having a sister after all the years with three brothers? You certainly treated me as a sister, as did Arthur, and Albert does.
I’m so sad, that you had to leave us in such a hurry. I think that I can speak for all of us who are left behind when I say that all I can feel right now is a deep sensation of shock. We knew you would be leaving us but not so soon as this. My only consolation is that I had some opportunities to tell you that I loved you. We had never spoken in this way before, (The Strongs didn’t do that, it was weak). Thank God for the ‘Mum’ side of me which led me to say this and for the conversations that followed.
I will miss our late night talks on the phone so much. I will miss knowing you are there to listen, to share a story and sometimes to advise me and offer suggestions to small, problems. I will miss our occasional trips out. In fact I will miss you.
Whether teasing me as a child, fooling around, sharing your holiday or supporting me, you were always the big sister!
You lived life to the full, driving for Centuar until you absolutely had to leave. You had many friends and you adored your family. Even when the cancer came you dealt with it. The Strong blood line ever present. When all around are panicing, the Strongs cope, It’s what we do best.
Now we have to manage without you.
That will be so difficult to deal with.
We must try to help each other to avoid falling into the big hole that you leave in our lives.
Goodnight my dear Pat. Rest in painless sleep.
I will see you tomorrow. when we all awake, then there will be no more pain – just love.
From your loving sister – Sammi.
No comments:
Post a Comment