For a sister who gave so much of herself

To my sister: Again, I must apologize for using this column for something shamefully personal to me, but in knowing what I am about to write, maybe I can say something that will be a little personal to a lot of us in Topaz and, anywhere else for that matter.

Each and everyone of us has lost someone close to us at one time or another in our lives. The pain seems impossible to bear sometimes and yet we do bear it and go on. It doesn't matter who those special people are in our lives, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, best friends, cousins, aunts or uncles; it doesn't matter the relationship in your life, they were close to our hearts. You bear it and you go on. It has been my belief for many years, that when someone close leaves you, they still live on because of wonderful memories they left behind, and as long as someone can be remembered, they are never quite gone.

I am old enough, to have known many wonderful people who have passed through my life, touched me in very personal ways and left me with something wonderful to look back on with fond memories and lessons learned through the years. And I'm sure a lot of you feel the same - they are not totally gone from our lives. As Bob Hope would have said, thanks for the memories.

I have had exactly one unbearably long week to really think about all of this. One week to realize, while I wallowed in my own selfish grief over losing my sister last Friday, just how many people around me have lost just as much and, in some cases, a whole lot more. I have had just one week to know my sister so much better, through family and friends, just who she really was, how other people perceived her, and how many lives she touched in so many special ways.

She was a private person and would be madder than all get out at me for writing this, but, like she always was with me, she would have understood my need to do this in the long run and would have told me to "just get over it."

There was five years between us, I was the youngest. I had to say that, you know, because she used to delight in the fact that people sometimes thought it was the other way around. Bizarre little memories have crossed my mind through this last week. Like the time she smacked me for something when I was little and of course I howled like I was wounded for life. Just as all this happened, my aunt, who she hadn't seen standing in the doorway to witness the event, stood there with a disapproving glare. She grabbed me and hugged me and with the best big sister concern she could give, patted me and said, "Why Jonni, why on earth are you crying?" Of course I howled louder out of frustration. What else could a three-year-old do? And the time when she was in seventh grade, when she sent me to the store with a forged note, supposedly from our mother, and had me buy her a pack of cigarettes. Guess what, back then, they sold them to me. Guess what else, Mom found the note. (My sister was always a bad criminal and, much to my shame, unlike me, she always got caught.) Mom cornered me and I begged for mercy. I wasn't nearly as afraid of the wrath of my parents as I was my sister's. I just knew she was going to kill me the next time Mom had to leave me alone with her. Guess what, I'm still here.

There did come a time in our lives when we truly got along and had a great time together. I was a teenager. I was no longer the tag-a-long little sister. I had become the one who sometimes even lead her astray. As with everything in our lives together, even when she was maddest at me, she still hugged me, held me, patted me on the back and said, "Why Jonni, why on earth are you crying?" And, right now, I can feel her hand patting me on the back and saying the same thing.

One week ago, my sister, Judy Pearson, passed away at the home near Topaz Lake that she loved so much. In one week I came to understand just how much she was loved by everyone she touched. I have come to understand how much she was loved by her husband Butch, who never left her side. How you couldn't say Judy without saying Butch and you couldn't say Butch without saying Judy. It will be that way for a long time. How she gave us all so much of herself. How she is now, patting all of us on the back and asking, "Why are you crying?"

And, thank you Carol Pomeroy, the one who gave me the use of the phrase, keep on keepin' on. Now I know what it really means.

-- Jonni Hill can be reached at jhill@recordcourier.com or by calling 782-5121, ext. 213, or at JHILL47@aol.com.