Category Archives: sister

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And she’s walking as if her feet hurt

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: crepitus.

I wrote this poem thinking about my sister in 2009. I was writing on everything2.com and they had a “masked poetry ball”. We put up a second identity and part of the contest was guessing who was who. My brother in law and my sister had been on the site for far longer than me. While I was masked, my brother in law sent me a message that the poem reminded him of his wife. Yes, I thought, that poem worked, because I wrote it about her.

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt
Each first metatarsal hits the dirt
Each joint feels like it’s full of grit
Bone on bone and all that shit

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt
Each first metatarsal hits the dirt
It’s no surprise, in fact it grates
To know she carries all those weights

Please rest your feet sometimes my dears
Those silly joints must last for years
One of the many dark deep fears
To walk in pain for years and years

And she’s walking as if her feet hurt
Each first metatarsal hits the dirt
I wish that she could go on home
And put her feet up all alone

I took the picture, of my sister and my son, in 1993 in Portland, Oregon. My sister injured her knee fighting fires when she was 22. Her knee worked after the surgery, but with crepitus within ten years. And her feet started to hurt.

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cottage

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: cottage.

My family has cabins on Lake Matinenda in Ontario, currently in a trust and jointly owned.

In 2012 my sister died in March. In August my daughter and I went to the lake. No one could bear to stay in the cabin that she had used the most the last few years. My daughter and I spent a day facing the mice and clearing. The mice had made nests in anything they could use.

Mouse nest in an ankle brace.
In Chris’s cabin


Empties.
Recycling.


Shoe nest.
Fabric with potential mouse nests. We had to go through the containers.

My daughter helped me and bless her. I was still feeling paralyzed with grief. We garbaged bagged the mouse nests, went through all the fabric, loaded the trash, recycling and empties into the boat and took them to the dump and to town. Then we bought half a dozen plastic containers and put every fabric thing and shoe that didn’t have a mouse nest into containers.

I went back this summer and a friend and I worked on the roof. The books and the glass containers are sad now, not doing well as no one has used that cabin since 2010. I didn’t think to box up the books, except for the log that my mother started.

Books and canned and bottled supplies.

This summer my daughter and I took four large containers in the boat and then by car to the laundromat. We washed everything and donated most of it to a local second hand shop. I put a wool blanket back in a container and moved some of the dishes my mother made in another container to a cabin that is in better shape.

Our cottages are full of memories.

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The extroverted feeler and the teacher

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: brace.

My sister was an extroverted feeler.

In fourth grade, she started getting sick a lot. My mother noticed a pattern. My sister was sick on Monday. She was avoiding school like crazy.

My parents were having difficulty figuring it out. EF’s grades were great. She was unhappy.

Then my parents went to a parent teacher conference.

My mother told this story: “The teacher said that EF came to her desk and asked to borrow a paper clip. Later, she came and asked to borrow a second paperclip. The teacher then produced the two paper clips. “Your daughter made braces with the paperclips. For her teeth!” The paperclips were bent.

“Um. Don’t you think that is sort of creative?” asked my mother.

“No.” said the teacher.

My mother would laugh telling the story and say, “After that, I pretty much let EF miss every Monday. I would not have wanted to go to school with that teacher either.”

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copyright

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: copyright.

This is my sister being a goofball on Christmas morning in 2010. The puppet was a family gift that we all played with. The Christmas hat is mine. This was after her cancer recurred: she died in March of 2012.

My sister wrote on line. She wrote at everything2.com and a blog: http://e2grundoon.blogspot.com/.

After she died, the people who write on everything2 were notified that another blogger had stolen multiple write ups and posted them on a blog as their own writing. That is a violation of copyright. And it feels particularly painful when it is my sister’s writing, who is dead at 49 from cancer. I do not think nice thoughts about the thief and I hope that the person regrets and makes penance for what they did. Hundreds of write ups were stolen from all sorts of people.

That is what the word copyright brings up. Don’t steal. Don’t steal my work or photographs or my sister’s or anyone else’s….

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Stepping out

For Mindlovesmisery’s Sunday Writing Prompt: “Take a walk“. Writing from another’s point of view.

Stepping out

We’re trying to get our steps in today. Mother thinks we’re too high too much and wants us to practice being more grounded. Silly mum, but we’re trying to humor her. Down to the beach, no shoes, keeping track. Step counters, we’ll walk all day…

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Ooooo, what has my sis got? I am heading over. Dang! She ate it already! I don’t see anything in the water. Bit murky here.

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Wait, but who is that? We agreed to walk, but if that one comes this way! No way! I am out of here.

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Rats, mum is still watching. She’s got her fierce look on, don’t mess with her.

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And look, people! And those awful four legs. It’s not that I’m scared, mind you, but their mouths give me the creeps. All those stalagmites in there. No smoothness and their faces have all those expressions!

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And there goes dad, heading by, checking on us. Jeez.

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Ok, ok, we’ll walk.

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