Dear Sandra,

I miss your laugh.  And I miss the way you always used to touch the top of my head as you passed the chair I was buried in, watching television.  It was a motherly gesture, and something I would only let my best friend do.  Although there were 10 years between us,  our shared love for cooking, our sense of humor and adoration for Monty Python helped to bridge that gap.  I still have a couple of the small wooden bowls we used for the horses hooves as they were galloping towards The Holy Grail!!  And I still remember, with great hilarity, the sheer panic in Sheran’s face when she thought the live lobsters in the trunk were scratching on the back of the seats trying to get into the car.

One day in May of 2003, you were senselessly and tragically ripped out of my life.  The fickle hand of fate reached in and infected you with the flesh-eating disease and there was nothing anyone could have done to save you.  You always did know how to enter AND leave a room!

I named this blog for you.  I remember the countless times I would ask what you were doing and you would tell me that you and your dad were pontificating on polysyllabic profundities.   If there were one person I would want to read this blog, it would be you.  (Although I’m sure you would have much more constructive criticism than necessary!)  I wish you could know how much you inspired my creativity in so many ways.  I wanted so badly to hear that crazy laugh when you read my post about Halitosis and what I did to that poor unsuspecting fellow with the malodorous breath.   Or watch you get a little misty reading my last blog post (although you swore you never cried) because if reality were different, you would be sitting in that widow’s peak with me.  That was always the plan.

Perhaps you do read this blog every day.  Maybe you are the unsettled bit of cold air hovering over my shoulder as I write.  Maybe the memory of your laugh and all the stories we shared are my inspiration each night when I sit down to string words together that hold some sort of meaning.

I would give up this blog in a heartbeat if I thought it would bring you back.  But since travelling through time and righting what was so viciously wrong is impossible, I will have to settle for the knowledge that you are somehow able to read these words.  That just maybe, when the scattered bits of the alphabet enter the blogosphere, you are first in line at that ethereal internet cafe to check for that email notification.

Today is December 1st, and as I do at the first of every month, I woke up and said “white rabbit” three times before I uttered any other words.  That small gesture not only carries on a long-standing family tradition to bring luck for the rest of the month, but it also gives me pause to remember the people who were taken from my daily reality and left in a world where I can only find them in my dreams.

And Sandra, if you are reading these blogs, I hope this one was your favorite.  I miss you.   xo

A few days late, but written in response to the Daily Prompt: Audience of One.