As I sit here this day, I wonder what heaven is like.  I wonder what death is like.  I wonder how many others are using you as a guardian angel.  I even wonder how many others remember this anniversary from 1997.  And, I wonder if I’ll ever stop missing you.

On the anniversary of your death, I clearly remember what we were doing the day before you passed through to your heavenly home.  My husband and I had gone to San Marcos so he could work and so I could have my first visit with my OB/GYN as I was pregnant with child #2.  You had been in the waiting room when we had DD#1 and I wouldn’t have had it any other way – I always felt like we shared our first baby with you, especially since we talked on the phone weekly (sometimes more than once a week).  I wanted to share as much of this new pregnancy as I could with you as I knew you were not going to have kids…and just the little things regarding our first daughter brought you some of the best joy.

I called you from the campground where we were staying for the night and let you listen to the heartbeat of baby #2 – I had recorded it just for you, so you could be with us in the same way you were involved with our first child.  You laughed and said that heartbeat “sounded like a freight train”.

Little did I know that it would be the last conversation I would have with you – at least while we were both alive.

The next day was Father’s Day.  In 1976, our dad died before we could have another Father’s Day with him.  We made it back to our home in Corpus Christi and I got a frantic phone call from Trickie.  She said something had happened and your eyes rolled up in the back of your head and you were unresponsive.  She had called her mom, a nurse, before she had called me as well as 911 – but, I was the first one she called, in our family, because she knew how hurt I’d be if I didn’t hear something so awful from someone else.  A few hours later, I received a call from an aunt who had a police scanner and said she was so very sorry but you had never regained consciousness and were DOA.  I was crying and screaming and so very upset.  You were the best friend I ever had, outside of my husband.  To this day, I still don’t have a best friend that cared about me as much as you did.  Or that cared about having a sibling relationship in the manner with which you and I had.

I talk to you often, even if it’s just in prayer.  I make sure to visit with you when I have a question about our family and pray for your wisdom to help me see through the quagmire of life to find an answer to my dilemma.

I cannot say I wish we had never gotten so close because without your love and showing me how to love, I was able to find and fall in love with my husband.  We have four wonderful (most of the time, which you would definitely laugh at) kids and none of them know their Uncle Mike except through some old family photos and my stories to them.  But, those stories do not take the place of having you here.

I miss having you here.

I miss you.

Forever your Sister, Tammy