Sixty and Sensational

That is what my sister Linda would have been today.

Sixty....(she'd have not been happy that I was blogging her age!) and sensational, which she was all of her life.

She was so many things in addition to that. She loved life and everything about it.

She loved her family...

(Yes, that's me with really red hair!)

She loved our beach vacations...

(This is probably the ONLY time you will see me in a bathing suit!)

She loved her nieces and nephews, especially when us girls would do stupid things like put fake tattoos on our ankles during the aforementioned beach vacations.

(Although I did have a real one at this point...)

And she really loved Jordan. From the time he was a baby, she was his "Nina" (he couldn't say Linda when he was little, so he called her Nina, and then it sorta stuck as a description of who she was to him....as in "that's my Nina". And he was Gordo....(not really my favorite nickname for Jordan!) and I was "The Jewel".

I know I tell you guys all the time how much I miss her. I can tell you with total honesty that time doesn't heal anything, it just helps you accept your new normal without someone. I think of Linda every day, and I feel her with me all the time. There is a very big hole in our family where she should be, and our lives have never been the same without her. And I miss her like nobody's business.

So today, I hope she's in heaven with a glass box of her favorite red wine, a pack of Merit cigarettes, and some Carly Simon blaring on the radio, and celebrating her sixty wonderful years. Because while she may not have been here for all of it, she has never left our hearts.

Cheers, sis. And Happy Birthday. Sixty. Geesh.

Love, The Jewel and Gordo.