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Day 19/30  A picture of someone you miss.

What a fitting "30 Days" post for today......

This is my sister Lori.  We look nothing alike I know, but I assure you my parents insist we're related.  :-D  9 years ago today my sister got into a car with a drunk driver and didn't make it out of that car alive.  

Let me tell you about my sister.  She was WILD, she was fiercely protective of her family, she told you like it was, she loved Randy Moss, her pillow and NASCAR.  She was 12 when I was born - I'm sure I annoyed the CRAP out of her.  I called her "sister" for a good part of my life.   I remember being in kindergarten when she was a senior and she had to take me to school - can you imagine?  I am certain she was completely mortified.  I use to get stuck in the back seat of whatever LOUD old beater car she had at the time and off to school we went.  Usually her BFFs' Garret and Janis were with us too.  Those three were trouble I promise you.  :P   I use to BAWL when she dropped me off at school - I'm sure Garret remembers me screaming "SISTER!!!!" as she left me at school, LOL.  Oy.  I didn't really get to "know" my sister until I was in high school.  When I was 17 I got a job at the law firm where she worked answering phones, typing and being the office wench. We rode to work together and that's when I actually got to know my sister.  Unfortunately I'd only get to know her for 3 years after that.  On February 10th, a month before my 20th birthday, my parents took my niece home.  She'd been staying with us that day while my sister and her neighbors went out for the neighbor's birthday.  My niece was 6 at the time and had gotten a hamster that day - she finally behaved long enough to earn one.  :)  So mom and dad took her to get a hamster.  They left to take her home and not long after I saw they had returned home.  I went downstairs to unlock the door (we lived in the country - never know when a serial killer would show up) and in came my dad.   I said "Did you forget mom or what?" and he said "I've got bad news." and he started crying.  Ok A. My dad doesn't cry.  and B. Where's mom?  He got out that Lori had been in a car accident and that all four of the people in the car died.  The neighbors across the street left 3 small kids too.  

I am weird about death - I'll be the first to admit that.  I don't get all emotional crazy sad with the ugly crying like some people get.  I guess I accept death as something that happens and there's nothing you can do about it so it is what it is.  I understand others feel different and that's fine.  I miss my sister, but I know she's in a better place.  Honestly, I always kind of felt like she wouldn't live a super long life..... I don't know why.... I guess it just didn't surprise me.  I went to a psychic once and she supposedly talked to my sister... I asked her if she wanted to say anything to me and she said "She shouldn't have gotten in the car.  She knows that.  She wishes she hadn't."   This psychic knew nothing about her accident.   I know she didn't suffer (luckily) and I truly believe she is in a better place.  I'm not a hugely religious person, but I definitely believe there is *something* after this life and so I'm comforted in the fact that I will see her again.  I'm sure she'll be the first one there to welcome me and hand me a beer.  :-)  Cheers, Lori!