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The camper is quiet. It’s just the two dogs and I for the next few days because my Jokerman is in North Carolina with his brother as he should be right now. We learned yesterday that my sister-in-law D passed away, and finding out unknownst to us that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer 3 years ago. Whether it is ever understood by her friends and family, she made the choice to forego treatment and keep the diagnosis to herself.
Joker and I had known something was wrong when we went to North Carolina to visit before Christmas. The D’s had left the nearby small town they lived in for years to winter in their motorhome in North Carolina close to their daughter. They hoped to sell their house while they were gone for the winter and do just what Joker and I plan to… travel and live out of their motorhome in their retirement years.
During our visit it was obvious that her health was declining. When they made the trip back to Illinois just a week after we’d left from our visit so that they could close on their house, it was obvious that something was seriously wrong. Where there was once a robust woman, there was now a wheelchair and oxygen.
But there was still a smile!
D has been in my life for less than 2 years. She was the first one of the family I ever met – only 3 days after Joker and I started dating. She was the one who “secretly” analyzed my handwriting, telling Joker that he’d better not screw this one up! She helped me deal with the challenges of learning to life my life out of a camper. We shared bags of used books from the book sale… trading them between ourselves after we’d read them. She sat chatting with me as I worked at sorting out the things in our house for auction. She counted the days until she got her first Social Security check and celebrated when she did. There wasn’t a weekend when they lived nearby that the four of us didn’t meet for breakfast. It wasn’t uncommon for dinner to be shared together during the week. She was curious about history. If you needed to know how to get somewhere, D could tell ya! She could make a twenty dollar bill last FOREVER in a casino even though she didn’t win a thing. She cracked all of us up when she talked for the dog in a high pitched squeaky little voice. And she loved her food… trying everything she could and savoring every bit of it even if it wasn’t to her taste.
I will never think of chocolate gravy again without thinking of her delight in discovering it in a little backwoods Arkansas cafe.
Yes there’ve been tears. But today there has been celebration and rememberance.
And gratefulness that she left her mark on my heart.
