*Do any of you watch Grey’s Anatomy? Starr and Sunny drove my interest in the show as they were often here watching it together and they welcomed my presence. If they didn’t watch it together, they were always on the phone with each other immediately after each episode. It was fun to see them so animated and interested. *sigh* Anyway, Starr and I just finished watching last night’s season finale. Seriously intense! Whoa. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
*Last year I bought a basil plant and kept it in my kitchen. Starr and I have used it regularly, snipping and eating…yum. Fresh basil rocks!! The plant was starting to get seriously spindly, so a month ago I bought another plant thinking to replace the old one. I killed it within a week. I don’t know what I did. Over-water? Under-water? Look at it the wrong way??? Spoiled as we have been with the fresh basil and not willing to give it up, I purchased new plants this week and am trying again. Wish them luck in my care. They will need it.
*Just over a week from now my baby will be turning 21 years old. I keep looking at her wondering if I can lock her up somewhere and when exactly did this happen?? I miss my cuddly little sweetie but am really proud of the young woman she has become. I will probably bore you with a lengthier post on this subject next week.
It’s not my photo (credits are below), but this bright beautiful picture reminds me of Sunny. I am at a loss for words today, I can’t believe that it has been 3 years. I miss her every single day. My love and prayers are with her family who miss her even more.
Both Sunny and Starr were wearing their seat belts, as they always did, at the time of their accident. Unfortunately, Sunny’s seat belt did not prevent tragedy. Starr’s may well have saved her life.
This video has been circling around my Facebook friends this week. It is beautifully done and worthy of passing along:
An original approach to road safety advertising from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.
I have been missing!! Missing out on posting, reading and keeping in touch!!
I have also been okay. Ups and downs, you know, life as normal. It just seems like every time I turn around, there has just been something needing attention. Today it’s Starr’s car. The weekend it was Starr herself and our little Easter dinner.
Here is a picture that caught my eye a few days ago, Starr and Sunny, being their usual uptight, boring, stoic selves:
I miss your bright, energetic, funny, awesome presence Sunny…so much!
My office is a hot mess. I know that there are other areas of the house that need attention, but tonight it was the “family tree” shelf which was piled with books, folders, printouts, notes (letters and notes that my mom took and saved 20 years ago, my notes and documents from my spurts of searching over the years) that caught my attention. I know that I organized it once upon a time, but over the last few years, I’ve pulled information that I failed to refile while at the same time printing new documents that needed to be filed appropriately.
I unloaded the shelf onto the floor of the living room and sat there on the floor with a glass of wine prepared to dig in and fix my mess. My computer and family tree information are on my computer…in the office! It didn’t take me long to realize that I needed to relocate and reassess my plan of attack. At the moment I am tempted to dump the whole pile back on the shelf and find another distraction…I know that I can find one easily.
In the meantime, I found a journal that my dad made during the last days of Granddaddy’s life. Granddaddy was relatively healthy until the end. He kept his mind, but the last few weeks were painful and slow. Grandmother had already lost her mind to Alzheimers. Granddaddy spent his last few weeks in a hospital bed placed in the living room of their home. She thought he was a newborn. Always needed to be touching, tucking or futzing with the “baby”. Granddaddy, when he had enough strength tells her to “sit down! I’m okay.” Dad took note of the general interactions with Granddaddy and he also chronicled a “conversation” with Grandmother…she was talking to herself, in another world. I hope it was a happy one. *sigh* Alzheimers sucks. As does cancer along with many, many other things…such as car accidents!
Granddaddy on his tractor, summer 1999, 91 years old. Off to help a fellow who was stuck in the pasture. I love that smile!
Grandmother, exact year unknown at the moment, with the Starr’s tree. Spring 1990 or 1991 as part of an Earth Day program the kids at Starr’s daycare received “trees”, we brought the sapling to the farm and planted it as a single twig and a few roots. To our surprise, it grew!!
The notebook was a sad read.
Granddaddy passed away August 2002, two days after my dad’s last journal entry. Grandmother passed less than a year later.
…that she is my favorite kid. And since she’s my only kid, I can totally say that out loud!!
She loves to smile and she isn’t afraid to be goofy!
See that ring she is wearing on her left hand? That is the ring I bought her for graduation. We picked it out together. It is a heart, in Sunny’s birthstone. She wears it every day.
Originally posted May 2008. I was warm and toasty last night watching Lost while wrapped in the bright blue and green blanket pictured below when my fingers brushed the Project Linus label. I never forget where the blanket came from or why, but I was moved to share this post again. I think it is a really really great project:
Starr and I finished moving home the remainder of her things Friday afternoon. There was much more there than either of us thought. After two car loads of crap, and some goodbyes, we have closed that chapter.
Three days later I am still faced with this:
In two of these pictures, I see two things that are very important to us. In the middle photo, there is a quilt on the banister with stars on it. And in the bottom one, there is a cozy brightly colored blanket with flowers and hearts. Both of these blankets were given to Starr last year after the accident. She received one at the hospital and the other at the high school.
These blankets were Project Linus blankets. Project Linus mission:
Project Linus is comprised of hundreds of local chapters and thousands of volunteers across the United States. Each volunteer and local chapter all work together to help us achieve our mission statement, which states:
First, it is our mission to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.”
Second, it is our mission to provide a rewarding and fun service opportunity for interested individuals and groups in local communities, for the benefit of children.
Together we have distributed over two million blankets to children in need since our inception in 1995.
The colorful flower blanket happens to have been made by Key Club students at Starr and Sunny’s school and was donated to Project Linus some time before the accident. Key Club is a volunteer organization at the high school that the girls were heavily involved with. It actually means a lot that the Key Club donation came back to Starr in this manner.
Starr and I have made plans to make blankets and donate when we can. The blankets really did make a difference.
I have her heart in my header and always will. I have it in my sidebar. Starr and Skye use it for their non-profit. I hold it in my heart and mind. I think Sunny might be embarrassed, but I know that she would understand why we chose it, why we are attached to it. The history of the heart has been told in the posts that I am copying here:
I was doing dishes yesterday and looked to my left. I have two cards that Sunny gave me posted there on the side of my refrigerator. I had noticed before that she signed her name with a little heart, but just then I wondered if I could take that heart and make a logo with it.
It still needs work, but this is her signature heart. Starr is planning on starting a charitable foundation in Sunny’s name and memory, and we are thinking that this could be part of the logo.
Well, that’s how I see it. Starr might have a different story.
Starr has been wanting a tattoo for years, she has been talking about it since she was 15 years old or so. She had all kinds of ideas, but for the past year she has been trying to come up with an idea that pays tribute to Sunny.
She considered daisies, an idea that is still on the table, but she wasn’t sure exactly how she wanted them to look. Suddenly, Friday afternoon she came to me and said that she knew what she wanted, and that she was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to her before.
Sunny’s Heart.
The little heart that Sunny signed her name with that I scanned and cleaned up. The heart that is a part of The Glass Dragonfly header at the top of this page. The same heart that Starr and Skye have incorporated into the logo for their charitable foundation.
Below is the last birthday card that Sunny gave me, and the source of the heart. She liked to call me mom, I loved to hear it.
Once she had the idea, she couldn’t wait. She “needed” the tattoo…now. And she got it. The weird part for me was that I wasn’t needed, my permission wasn’t needed…for Starr…or for the tattoo parlor. Don’t they know that this is my “baby”??? That I still want to have control? Yeah, well.
As always…I miss you sweetie!! So very much. I love you!
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions as a rule. Setting myself up for failure is something that I try to avoid. I believe that life is about learning and growing, fixing, changing, laughing, and loving…all the time. I try to make it a constant effort and avoid tying it to a specific day.
However, this year, today…not tomorrow…I am going to make a more conscious effort to allow myself to breathe, to live, to accept that I can’t fix this. To stop taking on everyone’s pain as my own. I have enough. It serves no purpose, it really doesn’t relieve them of any of their grief or suffering, it only adds to mine.
And to smile more and mean it!
Yes, Sunny is still on my mind each and every day. I miss her. I think about and send love to her family daily as well, as they still and will always carry the loss of their beautiful daughter. There are days that it catches up with me more than others, but I do think that I have moved forward in positive ways.
I do smile and laugh more and I definitely mean it!!
So, for 2010, I plan to continue…learning, growing, living, laughing, being silly, loving and healing. And I want to make more art.
Starr and I were reminded of this story the other day. I still don’t have a explanation, but I do know what I saw. Since it has been on my mind for the past few days I thought I would revisit my original post:
I saw her standing at the end of the hallway, the end that opens into the living room. It was a couple months after the accident, after Sunny’s tragic passing. I was rushing a bit, doing housework. I don’t remember if there was a reason for the rush, possibly just to be finished with the work.
I took the full bag of garbage from the kitchen and placed it in the garage. Returning to the kitchen, I realized that I had forgotten to grab a new garbage bag for the kitchen can. To the hall, turning right and taking a couple steps towards the living room before I notice that I am headed in the wrong direction. I stop short, and turn around back towards the laundry room where I keep those types of supplies. As I am turning, I look up towards the living room and there is someone standing there, female, mostly in silhouette, but I did see that her clothes were white. She was just standing there facing me, arms at her sides. I wasn’t shocked to see someone there, I didn’t think twice about it; I assumed that it was Starr.
Returning moments later to the kitchen, with garbage bag in hand, I expected to find Starr there, but the room was empty. Odd. Leaving the bag on the counter, I went looking for her. It had taken me less than 15 seconds to retrieve the bag, and I knew that I had glimpsed someone standing there. Starr was the only logical choice, as it is just the two of us who live here. As I start walking into the living room, she noisily comes up the stairs from her basement bedroom…wearing black.
I knew that there hadn’t been enough time for Starr to have gone from standing in the hall dressed in white, to coming up the stairs dressed in black in the time it took me to get a garbage bag and walk into the living room, but I had to ask it out loud anyway. “You weren’t just up here were you?”
“No, Mom. Why?” Well…and I tell her what I saw.
So, was it Sunny? This is my first thought. I don’t know. I do know that I saw someone, something. Beyond that, I just don’t know. Darkness suggested that it could be a vision of Starr’s future, the symbolism of black and white, darkness and light. A message that things will get better, that despite the overwhelming never ending sadness and uncertainty that we are currently experiencing, that there is and will be light in the future.
I haven’t seen her or anything similar since. However, Sunny and I did share a “Pappaw” dream, which I will post soon*.
Sidenote: Daisies were Sunny’s favorite flower. I always imagined that she liked the white ones, but I don’t know for sure. I saw the photo above last summer and was reminded of her.
Name? Kelly. Mysterious? Not really. Passionate? Yes. Lazy? Sometimes. Outgoing? Not a bit. Trusting? Mmhmm. Artistic? On good days. Crazy? Could be. Trustworthy? Absolutely. Graceful? I wish. Sarcastic? Often. Deserving? You bet. Forgiving? Yes. Religious? No. Spiritual? Yes. Uncertain? At times. Confused? Sure. Distracted? Daily. Silly? Yeah. Talkative? Not. Punctual? To a fault. Breakable? Quite.
This is not a music blog. While it is my desire to share free and legal music here (music is a part of me), it is not my goal to critique this music.
If I have posted music, it is because I like it, and it moves me at the moment. It might match my mood, it could be on repeat, or mirror the sentiment of my post. It might be quite random, and just what I wish to share.
*Older links may not always work, as promotional MP3s, in particular, are known to disappear without warning.
Artists and labels: if I have erred and posted a song inappropriately, let me know, and I will remove it.
To download a song: on a PC, right click the link and choose "save link as"
