Two Years

October 1, 2011

Dear Anne,

            Two years.  How can it be two years already?  By dates, it is not two years until the third.  But by days it is two years today.

            I still picture you in that prison called Kindred Hospital, head tilted to the right, holding the emesis basin in your hand as you slept.  I still remember your dark eyes that opened up your depths to me.  I still hear your sigh of relief as I stretched your ankles.  And your screams of raw pain during wound dressing changes still echo in my memory.

            I remember your wonderful co-workers, the joy and comfort they brought with their almost-daily visits that first month in UNC hospital where you received such excellent care.  I remember their grief and the comfort they extended to Bob and me through the memorial reception three days after you died.

            I remember how you would grip my hand, look into my eyes, and say “thank you” with all your being at the end of each day.  I remember how you made friends with everyone and exercised your acerbic wit right up to the last week.

            I remember the desperation I felt when your wound dressing leaked and the wait for the nursing staff was endless.   I remember when you greeted me with “Happy Birthday!” almost a month after the date, and I remember your consternation that you had somehow lost a big chunk of time.  I remember your bravery and determination.  I remember your thirst; oh, I remember your thirst.  (I still have the water pictures Lyn gave you.)  And I remember watching you chew in your dreams—you told me later it was a cheeseburger.

            Anne, I remember you.  Being with you those last two months of your life was the hardest and purest experience of my life—filled with a deep sense of God’s love and a painful empathy with you in your suffering.  I felt a fierce and tender love for you.  All that mattered was being there for you.

            And, of course, I still miss you.  Always will.  You are my reminder to live, really live, in the present—not stuck in the past, not wasting away for the future, but embracing the “now.”  (I can never forget your urgent words—“Don’t wait.  Do it now.”  Even though at that moment you were telling me to splurge and buy a memory foam bed, I understood the essential message about not putting things off.) 

            When we celebrate Communion at church tomorrow, I’ll think of you and of that great and wonderful day when we will sit together at the table of our Lord.  (You know, that dead guy on the cross who didn’t stay dead—the very One that set you free into your new life.)  Heaven is more real to me now because I know you are there, fully Anne and fully forgiven. 

Love,

Your little sister Janis