Well That's Just Odd

I had the most peculiar realization today.
I have this little village that lights up and makes a nice display at Christmas time. I always set it up on the piano and it lights up that side of the room…I’ve had it, ohhhh…I guess about 15 years.

Now that Christmas is over, the tree is down, all the other ornaments are packed away, I decided it was time to pack up the village too. After putting the buildings back in their boxes, I was wrapping each tree, lamp post, figurine individually for storage. I picked up the one of a young girl in late 1800’s dress…she has a large snowball next to her and is bent over it, patting the snow. As I began to wrap her in tissue I caught myself thinking with comfortable fondness…”okay, Lori…back you go, Christmas is over.”

Lori was my sister…she died when she was ten and I was fifteen. She was the youngest of four…I was the elder (still am…haha). I don’t often think of her, but as I caught myself thinking that thought, I was stunned. I also realized that I was accustomed, in some subconscious way, to having that thought. And not only was I used to having that thought, but that I was entirely comfortable with it. I have been associating that little figurine with my long dead sister for all these years…but never consciously realized it until now.

I wonder if my mind has conjured up some sort of convoluted way to keep her in the family? To have her with us at Christmas time? And I wonder…before I had the village, did I have some other way of keeping her near?

She was the most like me, of my siblings. She was fair and I was dark…but our body build was the same, our mannerisms…I think I would have been very close to her if she had made it to adulthood. I find that 33 years later I can still see her clearly…her blond pony tails and her lispy way of talking (she couldn’t say her R’s), and even as I write this I blink back tears. She would be 43 now…I wonder what she would be like.

I apologize for the macabre nature of these thoughts…but they are just that…my thoughts. And what is a blog for but to purge idle and meandering thoughts from my hopelessly muddled and oh so scary mind?