Well, that's over
At about 10 pm tonight, July 19, 2013, my older sister Cindy passed away after a short but vicious battle with lung cancer. She was 57.
57.
She was about a decade younger than our mother was when also passed away from lung cancer.
I will not make the obvious statements about smoking killing you; you know that already. People quit when they're ready to quit, and not one minute before. I know 83-year-olds who still smoke and are relatively healthy; my family doesn't have those genes. At least not the women.
Still.
She was my big sister. We weren't hugely close--she was 9 years older than me and she went to live with our dad in Houston when our parents divorced while I stayed with our mom in Midland. She had gorgeous red hair and freckles and those lovely color-changing Irish eyes (blue to grey to green). She was delicate and petite where I was big-boned and strongly built, but no one ever doubted that we were sisters. We shared warped senses of humor, loud voices, and absolutely no time for bullshit.
Cindy was married 3 times, the first 2 times to losers of the first water. Her 3rd husband, Gregg, is one of the most decent, intelligent men I know. I'm going to do everything I can to help him out over the coming weeks and months. They'd been married over 20 years.
She struggled with addiction in many forms all her life, but she was able to complete her GED in her late 20's and then go on to get her degree in Education and teach junior high and high school for over a decade. I will always be proud of her for that. When she got completely clean & sober a couple of years ago, she joined a local church which seems to have "Do Good Deeds" as their motto. She'd been running their food pantry for quite a while now. (I'm the farthest thing you can find from a churchgoer, but these folks are one heck of a support group. Gregg just has to stand back and let the Church Ladies take over. It's awesome.)
Cindy loved mysteries and paranormal romance and science fiction and fantasy. She was a reader, like all of us kids were. Every year at Christmas and her birthday I would struggle to shove one more paperback into the flat-rate box. She loved olives and okra and chocolate and gardening.
She was my sister, and I love her.
Goodbye, Cindy-Lou.
This entry was originally posted at http://lillian13.dreamwidth.org/54323.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
57.
She was about a decade younger than our mother was when also passed away from lung cancer.
I will not make the obvious statements about smoking killing you; you know that already. People quit when they're ready to quit, and not one minute before. I know 83-year-olds who still smoke and are relatively healthy; my family doesn't have those genes. At least not the women.
Still.
She was my big sister. We weren't hugely close--she was 9 years older than me and she went to live with our dad in Houston when our parents divorced while I stayed with our mom in Midland. She had gorgeous red hair and freckles and those lovely color-changing Irish eyes (blue to grey to green). She was delicate and petite where I was big-boned and strongly built, but no one ever doubted that we were sisters. We shared warped senses of humor, loud voices, and absolutely no time for bullshit.
Cindy was married 3 times, the first 2 times to losers of the first water. Her 3rd husband, Gregg, is one of the most decent, intelligent men I know. I'm going to do everything I can to help him out over the coming weeks and months. They'd been married over 20 years.
She struggled with addiction in many forms all her life, but she was able to complete her GED in her late 20's and then go on to get her degree in Education and teach junior high and high school for over a decade. I will always be proud of her for that. When she got completely clean & sober a couple of years ago, she joined a local church which seems to have "Do Good Deeds" as their motto. She'd been running their food pantry for quite a while now. (I'm the farthest thing you can find from a churchgoer, but these folks are one heck of a support group. Gregg just has to stand back and let the Church Ladies take over. It's awesome.)
Cindy loved mysteries and paranormal romance and science fiction and fantasy. She was a reader, like all of us kids were. Every year at Christmas and her birthday I would struggle to shove one more paperback into the flat-rate box. She loved olives and okra and chocolate and gardening.
She was my sister, and I love her.
Goodbye, Cindy-Lou.
This entry was originally posted at http://lillian13.dreamwidth.org/54323.html. Please comment there using OpenID.