Today, my sister Kathy would have been seventy. On September 1, we received an invitation from her daughter Kristen for a surprise party she was planning when Kathy’s surviving sibs (Tim passed in 2020) all would be in New York and together for the first time since our Mom had passed in 2019.
Kathy was apparently in reasonably good health at that
time. By the evening of the seventeenth, she was entering Heaven and being
fitted for her wings.
To anyone who knew Kathy, she was a loving and caring person, with a heart and a smile bigger than her entire being. She rarely, if ever, had an unkind word to speak of anyone, even if they had done something to hurt her. She was, as my brother Tim would say, Switzerland, in a world filled with Russias, Germanys and Chinas. But in reality, she was the Pax Romana personified, looking for a way and the means to keep the peace with her words, deeds and gentle soul.
Even as her eldest brother, I admired this trait in her that she exemplified, to which I could only aspire, and would fail miserably in my attempts to achieve. She was truly an angel among us and was not recognized by us who knew her until she was gone forever.
So, today, as she sits at the Table of Good and Plenty with our Mom, Dad, brother, and other family and friends who passed before her, she is the Guest of Honor as she celebrates her seventieth birthday, a milestone here on Earth for sure and her first birthday in Heaven.
One last point I would add about Kathy…
She always had a smile for anyone and everyone she would meet. It prompts me to recall the last verse to the theme from The Sandpiper, a movie of love, loss and cherished memories. The song was called The Shadow of Your Smile, which Kathy would sing on occasion with the feel and fervor of Barbra Streisand. But it is the last verse which really hits home for me:
Now when I remember spring
All the joys
that love can bring
I will be
remembering
The shadow of your smile
Happy Birthday, Dear Sister.
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