day 10 blog 11 sister

this was one of the "tree" photos from my free association...my sister and i picking peaches with our parents in the desert somewhere near where i grew up...we used to do this annually and then my mom and dad would slice them and freeze them in orange juice or can them in jars and sometimes my dad would even dehydrate them...i would totally use that old dehydrator now as i love dried fruit...

anyway, i was almost blogging a blog a day (did a couple extras to cover myself) but then late last night when i was going to write a post i got an IM from my sister on facebook and we ended up chattting for almost an hour. about our lives, dreams, hopes, fears, dealing with the loss of our dad, me possibly going in to a grief support group (anyone have any suggestions of how to find a good one?)...

we even talked about our impressions of my dad the day he died. he apparently told my sister something on the phone about how happy my mom was and my sister felt like the comment was totally out of the blue...and i felt like even though we were showing some random relatives around san diego, that my dad's narration of my life was more for my benefit like "see what a wonderful life you have to focus on"...i remember thinking his narration was quite odd that day...i also felt like he was pulling away or distant or extra reflective in an unfamiliar way. at one point he headed back to the car alone and later i remember telling my mom i think he may have thought he was going to die then and didn't want her to be present. i feel somewhat abandoned and sad that he didn't say goodbye in some small way but i think his focus on the present and future and how happy and good our lives are was his way of being that strong, optimistic support even as he was leaving us. it would have been too hard for him to leave with us so upset. i still have a lot of irrational guilt and remorse for not connecting more with him that day...just one tight hug or even squeezing his hand...

but that was not going to be the focus of this post. i actually wanted to just say how nice it was to talk with my sister and i'm glad i had that closeness instead of trying to squeeze in my daily post. one other free association on the topic of "sister"...when we were children, one of my dad's former clients' daughters used to refer to one another as "sister" instead of by their names...so my sister and i started doing that sort of to make fun of them and it is an endearing thing we still do sometimes...sea often calls story "brudder" and i know i will be really sad the day she can pronounce that properly...but that is a small memory growing up with my sister...