Dear Raisinettes

I know that a lot of you are wondering where I’ve been, and I thank you for the many emails I received and apologize for not replying to all of them.  There were and are a few reasons for my long absence.  My computer crapped out, and though my son built me a new one, I’ve so far been unable to retrieve all of my image files from the old hard drive.  There’s also the matter of the tendonitis in my hand that continues to plague me.

Oh, and did I mention the dog?  My sister had 4 dogs, and the city informed her she would be charged $50 every day she had more than 3, so Honeybear came to stay with me temporarily.  That was January 7th, and I’m no longer sure about the temporary part.  She’s 7 1/2 years old, and after several wrong guesses at what she is, I finally found out that she’s not the mutt that everyone thought she was.  Instead, she’s a purebred Louisiana Catahoula Leopard cur.  She keeps me quite busy, mostly sweeping and vacuuming up doggie fur all over the house.

The latest reason for my absence is a lot more tragic.  On the 6th of this month, I got a telephone call and was told that my niece, my beautiful Kimmie, had been found dead in her bed.  My other niece, her younger sister, had found her.  Kimmie was the first grandchild on my side of her family.  She was sweet and loving and had this wonderful little-girl voice that I would love to hear one more time.  She would have been 37 next month.  She had plans to marry at the end of this year on 12/12/12. Instead of a wedding, we had a funeral.  It took place last Tuesday, and it warmed my heart to see how many lives she had touched.  Her friends had flown in from as far as Seattle and Tennessee to say goodbye, and every seat was filled.

They say that every cloud has a silver lining.  Maybe that’s true.  My sweet niece is gone, but her passing reconciled my family.  My brother and my sister-in-law flew in from Montana, and my father came to the funeral.  I hadn’t seen or spoken to them in over 10 years.  Much of the past couple of weeks are a blur, but I will always remember the renewed sense of family.  We spent hours sorting through old pictures and alternately laughing hysterically and crying.  We all regret how much time we allowed to slip away and promised each other that we would no longer wait for a tragedy to bring us together.

I thought that when something profound happens in your life, you’re supposed to suddenly be imbued with some inner awakening and instant wisdom.  I don’t feel any wiser.  I just feel profoundly sad.  I’ll miss my sweet Kimmie for the rest of my life.  I wish I was a “believer” and was assured that she was in a better place.  I guess that I’ll just have to hope so.

Thank you, my dear Raisinettes, for all the support that you have always shown me.  I really do appreciate and was touched by your concern for my well-being.  I hope you will allow me a little more time to get back to posting at The Raisin.  I really do miss it and all of you, but I’m sure that you will understand that I have a lot more tears to shed before I can even begin to think about politics.

I miss you and love you.