A birthday

Today I'm celebrating my sister, Adeline's birthday by having a frosted cupcake. She is no longer with us, but I continue to celebrate the birthdays of family members even when they are no longer with us. Yesterday, when unpacking things that had been in storage, I found a swim suit I had forgotten about and remembered when Adeline and I went shopping for swim suits. We had been invited to spend a week in an apartment in Carmel, Calif. owned by my daughter and her husband, but they only used it on weekends, so Adeline and I had the apartment all to ourselves.

The apartment was only a few steps away from the ocean, but there was also a swimming pool and we anticipated doing a lot of swimming. We took long walks up and down the beach but I was the only one to use the pool, Adeline never went swimming although I coaxed and coaxed. She never used her suit. which was the prettiest. I had had to settle for a plain, ordinary one because it was the only one in the store that was my size.

We went to fancy restaurants, visited all the wonderful shops in Carmel and found a wonderful store for kitchen ware. We browsed there and even bought a couple of the cheaper items. Back in the apartment, we had tournaments of Spite and Malice and worked a jigsaw puzzle. The prize of the card tournament was something from the kitchen store. Unfortunately when we went to the store to buy the prize, the shop had closed and went out of business so the winner of the tournament went without a prize.

We finished the puzzle in time to leave it constructed for my daughter and her husband to see, but instead of leaving it on the table, we carefully moved it in one piece and put it on the floor in a corner of the living room. A few days later, my daughter wanted to know how we had been able to put it there.

There is a special place in my heard for memories of Adeline. She was truly a gift from the heavens when she joined out family. Happy Birthday, dear Sister.