Visit #3

Looking back to move forward

I read once that siblings share genes but rarely personalities. That held somewhat true for us.  Suzi and I were only 6 years apart in age but quite different in life.

A self-professed lifelong learner, she had earned her bachelor’s degree then dual master’s degrees, where I was content to never take another class after graduating college.  While she enjoyed a long career working for the same company, each decade I worked brought me different employment. She was organized, punctual and pragmatic, me—let’s just say not so much.  Her  family regularly traveled out of the country for vacations, while our family vacations revolved mostly around the locations of our girls sporting events.

I remember one specific time when our two worlds collided.  Willy was away for work and I needed to get our daughter Kate to a hockey game an hour away from home.  The night was forecasted to be cold and rainy and Suzi was worried about me traveling alone with the kids.  It would be the first time she would witness our weekly ritual of lugging hockey bags, skates, water bottles, and goalie equipment as well as all the items our younger daughter Kris needed to keep herself occupied during the game. After unloading everything, I finally met up with her (looking quite uncomfortable) in the freezing cold rink, KNITTING, among the rowdy hockey crowd. It was a typical game involving endless whistles, buzzers and parents who shouted like sideline coaches. Always so loud in the rink!  As usual, she quietly took everything in before announcing to me in the car on the way home that she would never, ever be coming with me again.  LOL. I cherish the memory of that night.

Thankfully, one passion we did end up sharing was Ancestry.  Our obsession to penetrate our past to find out who we were and where we came from.  Ironically, for the longest time we never knew of our shared interest. 

Suzi started her life in Maine living with our Mother and her wonderful parents on their farm, while our Dad finished his stint in the Air Force out west.  When he was discharged, he promptly moved them both away to Connecticut where he had grown up and his parents still lived and ultimately, where the rest of us siblings were born.  As she grew, Suzi never forgot or lost touch with her special Maine roots and remained extremely close to the relatives who helped raise her.  The rest of us grew up understandably closer to our Dad’s side of the family.  

All of that didn’t matter when we finally found the time to start comparing our notes. Two family sides meshed into one. Newly retired, Suzi immersed herself with the combing through of old newspaper articles, census records, letters, birth certificates and military records while I began helping her sift through the endless boxes of old photographs trying to identify our deceased relatives. It was during this time she developed a strong desire to find out the path us sisters would need to be accepted into The Daughters of the American Revolution. Not an easy task but civic pride and participation had always been very important to her.

On September 5, 2018, Suzi wrote an email to all her siblings letting us know about her research and how she had gone back far enough in our lineage to officially be able to apply for induction. We were all so happy and proud for her.  She and I made a pact right then to bring all our materials to share with each other when we met in South Carolina that Christmas.

Three weeks later she would leave us.  Suddenly and without warning. And time as we knew it stood still.  How, in an instant, could my sister have suddenly joined our Mother, Father, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents and Great Grandparents as a completed entry on our family tree?

It wasn’t long after her death that her husband received notice that Suzi would be inducted into the DAR.  Posthumously. On the saddest of happiest days, a bunch of us gathered and lifted our glasses to toast her accomplishment. Then I flew home and put away every bit of information on our family Ancestry.   Together we had shared our obsession with passion and enthusiasm.  There would be no joy in continuing without her.

Until now.  

I’ve arrived at a place in my grief where it’s clear that I need to pick up where we left off.  But I have decided we will continue together. 

She will remind me of all I should remember.

She will strengthen my heart, keep strong my curiosity.

For I now accept that she has joined the others who went before her.

Those I hold dear in my heart and visit in my dreams.

Those who we never knew but met together just before she left.  

She will hold her own place in the lives of our ancestors, those imagined arms wrapped around all of us. 

She will stay with me as I continue her work of introducing our past to our future.

Suzi.  I made it almost all the way through this visit without crying. I don’t know whether that should make me happy or sad, but I keep moving.  I miss you every day.