Words About Judi
Wonderful, hard, exhausting day. Below are the words I read about Judi at the service today. I'll write more soon. Thanks for all the love, kindness and support shown Judi, me and all of our family.
Judi was five years older than me and she was equally wonderful to me but if you knew Judi at all you know that she always had a little spark in her eyes. So although she took care of me----in fact it was her driver’s license that got me into the bars when I was in college..... she also liked to cause trouble. I’ve never forgotten the day when I was about five and she had friends over. I wanted to play with the big kids of course but Judi told me it was a secret club. She told me I could be in the secret club only if I ate an orange peel. So with Judi’s enthusiastic encouragement….I ate the orange peel. Of course then, as you can imagine, it turned out there was no secret club. And you know, I must have been upset and cried but all I remember is the sense of amazement that she convinced me to eat an orange peel. I’ve never forgotten that---and in fact my boys were amazed when I told them….
There was another side to Judi as well though. When she was just a teeny little girl, before I was born even, she could tell which kids in the neighborhood had developmental issues and weren’t like the other kids….and as a tiny girl she would hold our neighbor Ronnie’s hand and not let any of the kids pick on him. She could be fierce in her defense of those that needed it and she was like that the rest of her life.
I must tell you that after this last journey with Judi I will never be the same. I was with her in South Carolina seventeen months ago when she received the diagnosis of bile duct cancer. She was pretty much in denial initially and asked me if I thought it would be outpatient surgery. I said, uh…..I don’t THINK so honey. We laughed about that later but she was pleased as punch when we showed up at Emory Hospital in Atlanta and were sent to the ‘same day surgery’ waiting room. I argued that ‘same day’ was NOT the same as ‘outpatient’ to no avail. She was quite pleased with herself.
Having her live with us the past few months was an incredible gift. It wasn’t always easy for any of us, mostly Judi, and I must say that if they didn’t already have it, my husband and two sons would have earned my undying devotion for how they loved and cared for Judi. The boys ran up and kissed her every morning before leaving for school, brought her popsicles or anything else we yelled down for, picked her elderly dog up so he could get on her bed….. They gave her great joy.
In this day and age we don’t often live with another adult sibling and if you’d asked us before hand we would have said we’d drive each other crazy. But you know….it was absolutely wonderful. At first I thought ‘oh no, I’m going to have to keep the house clean and the boys well behaved and Ernie and I shouldn’t argue in front of her’ but that didn’t even last 24 hours. She saw us at our worst and and loved us and we saw her at our best and we loved her with all our heart. She would lie in the room at the top of the stairs and listen to the chaos down below and shout down comments or just laugh at us. It was something very special.
I don’t think I realized it would be so hard to have her gone. I innocently thought I might have prepared myself somewhat. As my friend Bob said though, ‘you can’t practice what you haven’t done.’ And I’ve never been without my sister Judi. Never. We argued sometimes or irritated each other….but we were always close sisters and even closer friends and for that I will be forever thankful.
My sister was brilliant and beautiful and loved. During this last journey she finally realized how loved she was. I don’t know if she ever truly realized how brilliant and beautiful she was but I do think she knew how much I loved her and I think that she was always proud of making me eat that orange peel.