When I was pregnant with Tristan, My sister (Auntie Vivi) met a boy she really liked through emailing back and forth. This boy lived in Alaska. By the time Tristan was 1, she moved to Alaska to teach and be closer to him.
She was then 3000 miles away from us.
Auntie Vivi's birthday is May 21st and though we didn't always spend it together or celebrate together on that day (it had a bad habit of falling on commencement weekend, which meant dad was very busy), we did like to spend time together around that day. I really missed having a younger sister to hand out with and celebrate in May. It was about that time that I realized Jaime's birthday was May 14--exactly a week before Auntie Vivi's, and I asked if she would mind spending her birthday day with us.
That first May that Auntie Vivi was gone (2011), I bought some cheeses, crackers, fresh fruit and juice, packed us up and took Jaime and Tristan to forest park for a picnic and a stroll through the zoo. The sun was shining, we were laughing (mostly at Tristan's new found curiosity in the world and walking abilities). It was actually just a month shy of her first cluster seizures, and before things started getting scary and difficult. She was very excited about "Shake it Up," our upcoming VBS that was kitchen and fruit of the spirit focused. We actually spent a lot of time that day talking about the VBS program she was putting together.
The second year, we went to another doctor's appointment for her that morning (she'd had a seizure a couple of days before) and then met up with James at House of India for lunch. Afterwards, we got Jilly's cupcakes from next door and then went to a park in Clayton to play. It was super HOT, and so we made sure we were someplace that they had a water/sprinkler play area, and there was a marimba to play on and a treehouse to climb. Jaime and I sat in the shade some, while James chased Tristan (though I would take my turn chasing him too). It was still a very wonderful day, but the feel had changed as Jaime wasn't running alongside us or laughing quite as much as she had before.
We'd even started planning for her last birthday as well, since after months of progress with Dr. Foland, we were hoping after a seizure in January that was followed by 6 weeks of reprieve that maybe she'd be driving again later this year.
We'd grown closer prior to Auntie Vivi leaving too. We'd joined a community bible study (CBS) in the year before Tristan was born and it sort of became tradition to go out to lunch after that Wednesday morning study and talk about how things had gone in our small group (we were part of different small groups) and about our husbands' programming adventures. I was only part of that group for a year (having a baby and being in graduate school again made it a bit too touch), but we kept up the lunch tradition as often as we could. It wasn't weekly by any means, but at least monthly if we could, we'd go to Pearl Cafe or Panera Bread or Las Fuentes and catch up outside of the church. It was always relaxed, full of laughter and definitely something I always looked forward to.
She really had become like a little sister to me, except perhaps that we seemed to get along better than most siblings most days :D
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