Giselle

"For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst on stands. - Christina Rossetti - Giselle made a collage of pictures of her and me that has that quote in the center of it. It describes us pretty well. She passed away 5 years ago today. So, with it being an important day in that way, and with the desire to express my gratitude everyday, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about Giselle today. As the only girls amongst our three brothers, we had to band together. Since we were so close (16 months apart) in age we were bonded together pretty tightly. We shared a room from the time I was born until she left for Rick's. But then we were roommates again for a year at Rick's, until she left for Pitt State. But I followed her there and we roomed together again until she married Hyriam. But marriage didn't keep us from living together, we did that not once, but twice. After Nate and I got married, Hyriam and Giselle moved in with us for a summer. Then when Nate got his job at the Bank, we moved in with them for some time as well. We just couldn't stay away from each other. Our husbands were pretty tolerant of our need to be close *chuckle*. Truly, I can remember only a handful (or two handfuls maybe) of times when we were angry with each other. We went through the divide-the-room-in-half stage for a while and once or twice argues over clothes, but since we were about the same size, we basically gave up deciding whose was whose and shared (though later, we had different styles which worked really well). And our roommate Shari would remember interrupting a little quarrel we were having, I think she said: "What are you guys arguing over, it's sounds stupid!" Hyriam told me that the only time he remembers her getting really annoyed with me was when I drove her Honda Prelude; he didn't tell me that until about 3 years ago. I am so very, very grateful that Giselle was my sister. What a wonderful friend she was, a good example and we made a good team. She was smart, bold when she needed to be but would rather have been shy and off reading a book (which really prepared me for married life since Nate loves to read as much as she does). Any time either of us lost our temper, the other could start laughing at the other and cause them to start laughing too. One time she, being pretty talented at sewing, was making herself a dress. She had been working on it for some time and was please to be putting the sleeves on, when I heard her get really upset. I looked over to see her almost in tears, and the sleeves sewn on upside down. Having this crazy curse of laughing during serious situations, I, of course, started laughing and saying something about her having to just walk around with her arms up in the air. Not very sympathetic, I know, but it was funny, really, it was. I do miss being able to pick up the phone and talk with her or tell her about my daily life or having her laugh at my temper and vice versa. But what a blessing it is to know that I will see her again; that we will hug each other again and laugh at all our life-learning mishaps and activities! It truly is a blessing to have that knowledge. I don't have a scanner so I just took pictures of some of our pictures together, they are a little blurry, but I thought it was fun to look at them. And I hope that this post makes sense. I kind of kept writing and writing whatever popped into my head.