"An Empty Chair..."

This holiday season is a time for being thankful. It's a time for celebrating. It's a time for memories. Here's a memory from my family. It's about my cousin Sandy. She was a daughter. A sister. A mother.  An aunt. Here's a rerun of my memory about this special family member.

She was just 43. 10 years my junior. I remember my granny telling us about her “older” brother, not much more than a toddler. “We asked if he wanted a boy or a girl, and he said he wanted a hippie”. I’m told that he also wanted to name the “hippie” Dusty. But they settled on Sandy.

Good afternoon. This is Randy. It’s been a devastating week. So stick with me through a few tough thoughts. And memories. And lack of memories. And when you’re done, pick up the phone and call someone you love.

She was born September 5, 1971 to a good family. Salt of the earth. Hard working. Church on Sundays and Wednesdays. Family reunions. Family mattered. I didn’t know her well. 5 years after she was born, I was too busy working and going to school. I didn’t have time for family reunions. Or church. I was too busy and important in my own little world. But later in life I’d get a chance to know her better. A little better. By then I was married with kids. So family reunions had become more important. Still, I can’t recall the last time we spoke. My last family reunion was in 1999.

Facebook has become a lot of things to a lot of people. A way to be “social”. I use it for that. But I also use it to keep in touch with family and friends a long way from where I now live. She was a Facebook friend. We didn’t talk, but I’d see her posts from time to time. And then I got broadsided.

(Sidenote: I left Texas in 1999. July 4th weekend. Family reunion time. I didn’t tell many folks. But a few I did. “Hey, I’m moving to Utah”. Freshly divorced, I wanted to be near my kids. And that’s where they were living. So I left after the luncheon, went home, and loaded my car. Before I left I had spent a little time going to see a few family members I knew I’d never see again. Uncle Delbert. Aunt Mary. Aunt Bernelle and Grace. A few others. It wasn’t tough. I was so focused on getting on the road to be with my kids, the reality of what I was actually doing never set in.)

Somehow, I missed knowing that she was ill. I’ve been gone for 15 years. I’ve lost a few relatives and friends along the way. For the most part, they had all lived LONG lives. She was just 43. And what I know about her, it’s all pretty much right there online. She was proud of her kids. She posted about them. Now they are 19, 16 and 13. I know the diagnosis must have been tough on her. Being told that there is really nothing...and she was just 43. She lost her mother to cancer when she was young. So she knew what was coming for her, and what was coming for her kids. And her husband. I’m sure she prayed for a cure. The whole family would have been on bended knee for that.

I know her siblings well. At least the oldest two. She had two sisters, two brothers. We spent a lot of time in the country playing out in Kelsey, Texas. Climbing “Granny’s Mountain” which was really just a deep ditch with dirt/rock sides. Easter Egg hunts. Dances. Thanksgiving and Christmas get togethers. And those family reunions. Now there’s going to be an empty chair.

We spent a lot of time at my granny’s house. It was small. We’d have so many folks there sometimes we had to eat lunch out in the yard. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer. But that’s where family got together. As with any large extended family, I have cousins I don’t know or don’t know well because they were either older or younger. And there is my cousin Sandy. I really didn’t know her. Still, her passing has broken my heart. Maybe it’s because she was just 43.

Music brings out our emotions. You hear a song, you remember a time. A place. A person. An activity. And music touches all of our senses. You hear a song, and you're back at a place so real you can smell the air and feel the breeze. We spent a lot of time at my Granny’s on her front porch swing. Singing “Hang On Sloopy”, “Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron”, “Joy To The World (Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog) and more. There were times that swing was packed so tight it’s amazing nobody was hurt.

I relate a lot of things to music. Hearing of Sandy’s passing brought to mind the Garth Brooks single, “If Tomorrow Never Comes”. And Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Are Dying”. Maybe Sarah McLachlan’s “Arms of an Angel”. Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love”. I was surprised that there aren’t more songs about telling people how you feel. One thing I’ve learned from this. In a unique way, Sandy and her family were lucky. They knew there was a finite time to be together. Everything that needed saying could be said. If there was a reason, air could be cleared. I’ve always said that Christmas time is the time of year we treat others the way we should treat them all year. I’ve learned a lot this week from my young cousin. RIP Sandy. It’s hard to believe she’s gone. She was only 43.