I can hardly believe Sharon has been gone 8 years.

I love you, Sharon! I miss you every single day. xoxo

Sharon with a wee Kate, April 1987.

And missing you every single day. I love you, my beautiful sister. How is it six years already?

The person who looks best in this photo — and shines — is the person who least liked this sort of thing. She would try to make her escape before the subject of a family photo came up, or, alternatively, storm out in a huff (hollering and likely tears) and the photo session would then be over. Ha! I seem to recall that happening when the photo above was taken, Christmas 1983. She looks so sweet, doesn't she?

I can hardly wrap my head around the fact that you've been gone 5 years. I miss you, bitch… I mean Sharon!

XO

I've been playing Words With Friends with Annie and the other day I started a board with the word WHORE. Annie immediately sent me a message and said that she felt like she was playing with Sharon! Sharon's phone calls with sisters always began with a little exchange of name calling, along the lines of (and riffing on) SNL's "Jane, you ignorant slut…" It was hilarious (to us), and we're obviously still easily humored (and still immature).

Folding laundry this morning, I was missing a sock.

Oh, well, it'll turn up… maybe it fell on the floor or I left it in the basket. Not worried. (It's a sock.)

Driving along in my car this afternoon on the way to the grocery store, I tucked my hand under my leg and… What is that? Did I sit on something? What is so lumpy and soft?

And then I realized that it was the missing sock, stuck in the leg of my jeans.

And I laughed out loud, remembering the story Sharon would tell — in the way that only she could tell it — about a pair of underwear slipping out the leg of her pants as she walked into a gas station, and how she discreetly bent down to pick them up, stuffing them in her pocket. You know, as one discreetly does. Heh.

Oh, hello Sharon!! I miss you and am thinking of you a lot today… a Wednesday… that's the day that Mom and I had a standing date to drive down and visit with you. I miss Mom, too. xoxo

I'd already gone to the coffee shop and running a few other errands this morning with a weird sock lump on my leg!

There's no way I could go into the grocery store now, though, knowing that it was there… surely everyone else would know! It would be written all over my face! Heh.

So I parked the car and looked around, discreetly unzipping my jeans (as one does) in the parking lot at the grocery store, and reached in to retrieve the stray. Ha! It was easier than I thought it would be with somewhat skinny jeans on, and I zipped up quick!

And I miss you, too.