May the Circle be Unbroken

So. 

I specifically don't want this to be a tribute blog about all the people I love (there are too many to count, thank you Jesus!).  It would get rather...redundant for the readers, I mean.  But I just gotta do this!  I just gotta devote a minute to my sister-friend-cousin.  

Isn't she lovely?  She would hate her picture being posted up here!   Why?? (I know, right? She's gorgeous.) Because she is one of those people who doesn't know how beautiful she is, which makes her even more lovely.  And just when you are thinking...bitch! She's also the most considerate person I've ever known, and has a heart the size of Texas.  You meet her and you love her.  There is no other choice.

I fell in love with my surrogate big sister when I was about two.  Our Dad's were brothers and the best of friends for as long as anyone can remember.  So when we relocated from Boston to Atlanta, it was just a given that we would be spending a great deal of time with my Auntie, Uncle, and two cousins, Kip and Annie.  My mother decided to pursue her master's degree at UGA (go dawgs!) and she needed child care for little me to do this.  Auntie Mary took on the task of watching me daily with all the Italian Mama love she could muster.  Annie, who was 8 at the time, remembers seeing me curled up on the couch with her Mama, and felt a pang of jealousy.  She sat down on the couch and grabbed her Mom's hand saying, "that's my Mama." I calmly took the other hand and said, "It's okay, we can share her."  From then on Auntie was referred to as my "nudder mudder" and Annie and I became sisters.  

What I remember best about my time in Georgia was the knowledge that I was utterly loved.  It has occurred to me over the years that when I was three and Annie was a popular 10 year old with plenty of neighborhood girls to hang with, it must have put a real cramp in her style to always include the toddler in their Barbie dramas.  What a drag! 

But she swears not.  She says that she loved me to pieces.  Even though by five I was a major pain in the ass tattle tale, who would rat out my surrogate brother and sister at the drop of a hat.  

Today, God has seen fit to miraculously scoop me up out of my Yankee residence and bring this Southern girl home again.  And by God's grace, the sibling relationship has been passed down to another set of cousins.  Once the dust on our moving truck had settled, it became apparent that the five cousins, our children, would be the best of friends, as we are. Sweet, sweet memories surface as I watch Annie teach my children the rhymes she once taught me, as I listen quietly to the two three year old cousins playing prince and princess together for hours at a time.  And I am humbled.  I whisper a thank you to the One who is listening.  

Annie is still the person today that I loved as a toddler.  She is a woman who protects those she loves ferociously.  She will stand by her friends when they are wrong and encourage them until they get it right.  She will swoop in when you haven't showered in three days because you've been taking care of sick kids and leave dollar store treasures and hot tortilla soup on your doorstep.  She is a rock and a soft place to fall at the same time.

Alas, this is by definition a tribute!  But, I will not apologize to you who are reading.  Because this life is short and hard.  When you love someone, I think you should shout it from the rooftops!