My sister Lisa… is so beautiful!

It has been almost a year since Lisa passed away and gone to sleep forever, losing her battle with cancer.  I was lucky to have spent the last few months with her and deeply grateful for having this time to reminisce with one another, while telling the stories of our lives.

I got to soak up her incredible infectious smile and let it wrap itself around me giving me the courage to continue being a sister, an aunt to her children and friend to her husband.

For most of my life, my sister was to me a Greek goddess, incredibly smart, talented and beautiful.  For a while she was bigger than life itself, I looked up to her,  following in her footsteps, doing everything she did, some of it well before my time and Lisa in turn took care of me.  That’s what sisters do, we take care of each other.  How I miss her…  in a way it’s like losing a little piece of yourself  forever.

This is the first time I can actually articulate a thought, a sentence regarding her, without getting emotional.  Sharing with the world how incredibly cool she was and how much you would have thought so too!

The things I miss most about her could occupy this blog for decades, though for now, for today, I miss her mostly because she was an incredible listener, a great friend and we could talk for hours about anything.  I suppose it’s why she became an attorney, with her compassionate demeanor and desire to help people.

Although, I think she missed her calling, her sense of style was exquisite and her storytelling was eloquent, that she could have easily been a chief editor for any magazine.  I would have loved that… it would have meant glorious samples of clothing, shoes, jewelry and she would have shared them with me – as she always has.

This is one of the last photo’s I took with Lisa, eating dinner at the swanky Canyon Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, followed by shopping at Jezebels, what a great night.

What finally inspired me to write about Lisa today is a photo project on Pioneer Woman about sisters.  I looked through old wonderful photo’s of Lisa and I to submit to the photo assignment.  This one above was my favorite, well, because it’s the last photo taken of us together – it’s us being real and shows how much we loved each other.  Hanging out at our favorite places, spending time with good friends eating and shopping.

Lisa was talented in so many ways… a writer, a peacemaker, an attorney, a chef, an artist, a musician – a genuine rock star – she’s Punk Royalty !  We had so much fun growing up on Fort Lauderdale beach in the middle of the music scene, which was a big part of our lives.  Lisa took me to my first Patti Smith concert in 1979 – what a turning point for me.  It was a time when my life really began to take shape.  It helped define who I am today, those moments are laced with lovely remnants of my beautiful sister.

I will love her always!

10 years ago Lisa was diagnosed with cancer, surviving the first sign of this wicked disease.  Her cancer going into remission, she began the healing and recovery process.  During this time she began a beautiful scrapbook for each of the children in our family, there’s 5 of us, three boys and two girls.

I’m a twin to one of the boys, though Lisa and I seemed more like twins then Peter and I.  Throughout the years, Lisa would add new photo’s, events and milestones to each of our books.  It was as though she was keeping them open ended, she never had the chance to finish them.

Her lovely daughter Elizabeth, my beautiful niece, surprised me  this past holiday by completing the scrapbook and sending it to me.

It brought tears to my eyes and always will.  I’m no longer crying tears of sadness but tears of joy.  I want to celebrate Lisa and hope that one day I may be as beautiful as she was.