[viscousmemories]

Thanks vremya.

I just re-read my post and realized I sounded pretty dispassionate and detached. My sister was 10 when I was born (she was kid #3 and I'm #10) and took a lot of the responsibility for helping to raise me in my early years. She used to play guitar and sing to me, and when I needed a place to live at 16 she and her husband let me move in with them and their young child for a few months. We were very different--she was extremely religious for most of her adult life and the mother of six kids, but she was always very excited to see me when I visited Michigan and would be the first to call when I got there and ask me to call when I got back to Austin safely. I'm also relatively close to all her children and 3 grandchildren. I had dinner at her house the night before Christmas and she handed me a gift bag with a chocolate Santa in it (she had gotten one for each of her siblings) which I ate that night, and that's the last time I saw her alive. The whole thing was quite a gut punch, made more difficult by my having to return to Texas. I was at least able to stay a few extra days; the funeral was on New Years Eve and I was supposed to return on New Years Day, but I stayed a few days more.