Dear Anne

Dear Anne,

            I miss you.  Tomorrow would have been your 61^st birthday, and you’ve been gone almost five years already.

            I miss your hearty telephone greeting:  “Janis!”  I miss your overbearing personality.  I miss your tender heart carefully hidden beneath a gruff exterior.  I miss your sense of humor and verbal word play.  I miss your hand gripping mine and your piercing gaze.

            I still count those 66 days with you at the end of your life as a cherished yet profoundly difficult time.  I am so grateful that I was able to be your support and advocate.  Those long hours at your bedside taught me the ministry of presence.  So human and so holy, that time bound me to you in your suffering.  I learned the tiniest fraction of Christ’s sacrificial love.

            Anne, far more than I feared you as a child (you really were the older sister from hell!), I love you and miss you.  I’m glad you found the missing true love of your life, Jesus, at the very end. 

Love,

Janis