In Memory Of Sylvia Rainwater Peoples

Dear Sylvia,

Some say a year or two is long enough for grieving, but surely they have never grieved. Two years in, I still feel your absence like a vital part sheered off, a wing in mid-flight, a hand under a dropped saw. Some say that grieving ends. I don't know when. Some say our mourning weighs too heavy on departed souls. We must be about our business, and let them go.

You've gone ahead on your soul's journey, and I wouldn't hold you back although you loved this world and weren't yet prepared to leave it. None of us were yet prepared for you to leave it. A loud silence rings where you were; a torn place in our hearts never heals. The world is missing a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a registered nurse, a friend, a defender of animals, all of these in you.

I want to memorialize your life, however, and not my sadness, merely. Next to loss, I most feel gratitude for all the years you were my sister. Dear Sylvia, I thank you for who you were, for all you gave me, two lists too long to write. For each, a few remarks will have to be enough.I thank you for who you were, for your knowledge, strength, dignity, and goodness.

Throughout my life, I watched you comfort aged, sick, and dying creatures, both human and nonhuman. The outward sign of your inner grace were your lovely, delicate hands, your healer's hands. My heart is forever engraved with their image.I thank you for all you gave me, for gifts on birthdays and at Christmas, for rings and bracelets you liked to give away for no occasion at all, for your chocolate-pecan pies and Thanksgiving dinners, but more than anything, Big Sister, I thank you for all the countless things you taught me.

Though your earthly eyes are closed, I can see the world sometimes through them because I knew you, and because I knew you, I am better, braver, smarter, kinder, than I could have been without you. More than a blood-and-bone kinship of sisters connects us. I feel your life in me, though you are gone. I feel your absence, like a vital part sheered off, my own hand reaching past the Gates of Capricorn for yours. When my time comes, I know you'll pull me through. With eternal love and gratitude.

Catherine