"...As we walk this painful life, we have a choice to become all we are capable of becoming and to develop the highest way of being - to become love....You are becoming. You are a blessing to those around you. As you apply this knowledge to your ruptured heart, it will heal you - a little at a time."

Thank you so much, Vi. If indeed the practical application of selfless love in its highest form reaches my doorstep, I shall have to live another 55 years to achieve it.....

Maybe you have given me a reason why God called Ellie & Ronnie home early. Ellie was everyone's best friend. Despite an extremely troubled long-term marriage to a philandering, abusive druggie, Ellie still smiled easily and provided daily comfort to her family and childhood buddies who leaned on her for strength & humor. Not to mention her culinary masterpieces of the meatloaf and stuffed cabbage variety.....

Ronnie was the second coming of Mother Teresa. In point of fact, she WAS a personal assistant to her, whenever Mother would "sneak" into the US to visit her Missionaries of Charity in NJ. I asked my sister why she didn't join this special order of nuns and she answered, "Because I want to devote myself to my family's needs first, before anything else." And she did. She gave and gave, often to lazy young adults in the family who used her goodness rather than work for a living. Ronnie would even borrow money on several credit cards to aid different ones in the family who chronically presented her with hard-luck stories. She never married and LIVED to please those she felt needed her. As a nurse and her sister, I saw the toll this was taking on Ronnie's health and cautioned her to take it easy, but she continued to work overtime to be able to give more to certain "needy" family members while she herself went without.....

Maybe God in His infinite wisdom decided Ellie & Ronnie deserved an eternal vacation devoid of heartache and crisis. If that was His intent on calling them home early, I am so very happy, for they are in a much better place..... That being said, I am selfishly struggling for acceptance of life without them. The present is so very unfamiliar to me now. I've actually called Ronnie's now-disconnected home phone, just to feel my finger's familiar sequence of numerical dialing pattern. I listen repeatedly to her old answering machine message, the last one she left my son, days before her fatal collapse. As I am writing this, I can see two photos of Ellie & Ronnie, taken during their childhood years, both positioned close to my heart, and the keyboard. The more painful recent pictures are here as well, but located farther and at a much safer distance from my quickly reactive tear ducts ...In memory of my two sweethearts Ellie & Ronnie, I continue their legacy of humor and giving (Disaster Relief & Special Olympics)....The expansive rupture remains.

God bless you for your kindness. May Anita rest in eternal peace. Josie