I want to say Thank you...

To all the new people who kindly chose to follow my blog.  I know many have snooty attitudes about giveaways and new followings, but I find it a fast way to get quick exposure to my blog.  If you don't like me, then you don't get that extra point on the rafflecopter!  If you don't mind, and I'm another blog you skim though, big deal.  If you find me super exciting, then we were meant to be friends, and the giveaway was worth it weight in gold.  Actually, it was funded by items that I have won in other giveaways, so basically it was free for me!  Before I get serious, I'm going to say a few things.  Why does blogger have HORRID spelling suggestions?  See up there, where I wrote "rafflecopter"?  I know it's a brand, and I don't care if I didn't capitalize it, and I know I spelled it right....but when I right-click for it's suggestion, it wants me to hyphenate everything or put a space between the words.  I get really annoyed at the end of the post when there are too many red squiggles.  I hope everyone had a nice holiday this weekend.  I'm not super religious, but more spiritual and I usually like to keep that part of my life to myself!

When you lose a member of your family, it feels like you lost a vital piece of yourself.  It feels like the family unit is down a leg, or missing an arm.  It feels like you don't function at your optimum potential.  You always feel that phantom pain for what is missing.  And it's always more apparent when you have a big family.  And that people in their 50's love to comment on their photos that they take of their family on Holidays.  Unknowingly pissing their "disabled" family the F*** off.  I still feel weird using obscene language, because I want to be professional enough to be taken seriously, but I really like the F word.  Sometimes that is the word that is the most accurate for a given situation.  My family consists of my parents, me, my teenage daughter, and my deceased sister (who was engaged).  I think of us as a starfish with a ghost limb, which would obviously be my sister's part.  She is always here, no doubt.  But you can feel that she's not here (paradox, I know) the most on holidays.  I don't like participating in the activities, because ignoring them is easier for me.  If I'm not eating Easter dinner, then I don't have to see her NOT eating Easter dinner.  If I don't see it not-happening, then it's not as painful for me.  What I'm missing out on, is special time with my family to rebuild some of the substance of unity that disappeared with my sister.  So I'm giving up a lot, in order not to feel that much pain.  Because it still hurts.  I think of the millions of people running around outside or in their houses finding eggs, and I miss when I was little and me and my sister were pushing each other out of the way to find eggs.  She was better at finding them than me, even though she was 2 years younger.  My age definitely didn't make my size two years older, because we were always the same size since she was 5.

People just don't always think, and assume that you are on the same elated level as them.  Scrolling through all the families getting together for the holidays, and people who post way too many pictures (of anything) are irritants to me on days like this.  I'm not trying to bring anyone down.  I'm being about as honest as I can get.  I am going through my almost third year of life without her.  If you grew up with someone and saw them all the time for over 25 years, I don't think 3 years is enough time to get-over-it-already. I don't feel like this every day.  I miss her every day, and that unbearable knocked-out, kicked-in-the-stomach, kneeling over holding your stomach, then kicked-in-your-kidneys (back) as-hard-as-possible absence of-breath feeling from kneeling-over pain is gone.  Basically, when you get gut punched, then fall down holding your burning intestines, and having that guy ninja-fly over your back until he's facing your back and kicking as hard as he can with multiple kicks, in one leap, than turning around and running away to do more ninja stuff elsewhere....  Where your soul is ripped out from the bottom of your heart, mashed up into a ball shape filled with spikey gloom, and punched back hard again, into where it goes by the bottom of your heart and lungs. *this is what I imagine it to be, since I studied anatomy and physiology quite closely, and that's where it hurt the most, when that second of life was ripped out of my body and replanted.  It took awhile for that new memory to heal in my heart.  And it goes through a LOT of emotions, sometimes back and forth in a single day.  I feel like I know the depths of life/death too early, than when I should have.  There are women who lose babies, or can't carry a baby that know this pain.  There are mothers and fathers who lose a child, before they are "supposed" to, that know of this pain.  And there are sisters, brothers, cousins, family and friends, that know this pain, but some are lucky not to feel this until they are 40 or 50, when they lose their parent(s)/other significant person.  Maybe you know how it feels, and maybe you are lucky if you don't.  And if you don't know what to say to someone, it's probably for the best that you don't, and your hug will be a great substitute for words.  Because those are what ring hollow in my head when I get in these funks.  And people can really say some off-putting stupid things, when full of anxiety on what they should say.  That's why humans have non-verbal communication, and that's when you should decide to use that option.  I know that I appreciate that the most.  Because grief is a monster that pits logic and love against you.