A Tribute to my Sisters

I remember Erica -  again, again and again.  It is a year ago today that my sister passed away from this earth to be with the Lord.  Erica had been an integral part of my life since day one, she being two years older than I.

If Erica had seen this hydrangea bloom she could easily have started singing:  "Bloom ye in all your loveliness, cheering the wayside weariness..."

the rest of us chiming in, of course.  

I miss her.

Erica and I, with hubbies off camera, after a wonderful lunch of Greek Food at her favorite Rendezvous Restaurant, celebrating our mutual April wedding anniversaries* about one month after the fact (this photo was taken on May 17, 2009 and she passed away on June 27, about six weeks later )since Erica was undergoing chemo during this time.  Here she is smiling as usual, her hairless head covered with her hat which she was not embarrassed to whisk off on a whim.  I'll never forget the shock I received the first time I saw her whisking off her head covering.   She laughed and made light of it and treated it all in such a great healthy manner that I simply stood in awe of her.   

Through another window...the wheel of life moves on...

Just a few days ago my remaining, equally amazing  sisters, Hedy, (me), Ingrid and Herta enjoyed a wonderful lunch at a local tea house.  My sisters showered me with love and treats and prayers as they helped me celebrate my 70th birthday!  Thanks dear sisters!  You are such an integral part of who I am.  Thank you for your ongoing love and support and encouragement.  You are absolutely terrific!

After our two hour luncheon we drove out to the cemetery just a few kms from there and paid our respects at Erica's grave.  It was not a sad time...we were at peace on that glorious afternoon, remembering, singing and even bursting out in laughter at one point over something that just caught us by surprise and we knew it was okay.  We continue to be blessed.

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*This April Al and I, along with Peter, decided to revisit The Rendezvous for lunch in honor of all the many times we were blessed to have Erica with us to complete our foursome in our celebrations.

"Zacchaeus and the Orange Tree"

Dana and Andrew, with their three children, have recently moved back to Winnipeg from Mexico, where they lived for four years.  One of the great benefits of spending time with them, along with playing Scrabble, traveling to old colonial cities, just hanging out and telling stories to and singing songs with Eva and Micah - Joshie came along later- was enjoying the oranges and lemons from the three citrus trees in their back yard.

Here Dana, in the shade of the orange tree,  is holding  Micah- 3 months old at the time- while 2 year old Eva is sweeping the patio. 

The tree was loaded with juicy tangerine-type oranges.  Over the three week period that we were there we had pretty well stripped the tree of its juicy fruit.  Eva enjoyed them as much as we did.

One of the songs we'd been singing over and over again was:

"Zacchaeus was a wee little man, 

a wee little man was he,

he climbed up in a sycamore tree, 

for the Lord he wanted to see."

 Every time we came to verse two:  

"And as the Saviour passed that way, 

He looked up in the tree,"

 we would convincingly speak the next line:

"Zacchaeus, you come down..."

 and so it went.

As we were nearing the end of our stay we were scrounging around for the last of those precious oranges.  I was convinced there must be a few more hiding somewhere within those thick, somewhat thorny branches.  I urged Al to go around the back and see if he couldn't snag a few more oranges for us, by carefully getting into the center of the tree.  After he'd been attempting this for a few minutes and most of Grandpa was not visible to little Eva, she got a bit concerned and walked over to the tree, shook her little finger in the air and out of the blue convincingly repeated:

"Zacchaeus, you come down!" 

And he did...wearing a great big grin and bearing precious fruit!

But while the tangerine orange tree was bare the "juice orange tree" was just coming into its own and we enjoyed freshly squeezed orange juice at breakfast.