Oh ,the words we could share about Rose! As my younger sister stuck between two older and one younger brother, she was made resilient and fearless. We had a dog, Tracy, just a hunting dog, and she was determined to train it to walk a plank from a wide trunked tree to the top of what once was an outhouse. I wonder if she used these same methods to teach hundreds of lucky school kids.
She was delightful in so many ways. Our family was of Slovak ethnicity, and we were exposed to polka music at an early age; and Rose was very much desired as a dancing partner by our adult nephews and male cousins at "demolition dancing” at fire hall weddings.
She wrote fabulous, newsy letters from Dallas and later from Huntersville; and though we didn’t get together much, she was so loving that she found time to travel and visit all of us and let us enjoy her animated chatter and love. When our family began to lose members, she would come. She would comfort. She’d buy us a sandwich. She’d send money. She’d let us know she was grieving, too.
It’s odd to think that I will miss her more now, but I never missed her when she lived, even though we wouldn’t see or hear from each other for months. Somehow, I knew she would show up with her incredible smile eventually. But for now, I’m content reading our goofball texts that kept me hopeful during the past year, and as Ann Lamotte says “when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.”
