sing, wind chime

The porch where I type is screened and looks out over our back yard.As I gaze around all I see are trees.A large box turtle is sitting in the grass and I put a blackberry out for him.He just sits in the sun;his shell is light brown from dried mud and he must have come up from the floodplain.He is in no hurry and neither am I.

To my right is a small garden that is shaded by a Japanese maple tree.The tips of the branches are light green and the rest of the leaves are darker.In the fall, the leaves turn brilliant red and then you must notice this smallish,shy tree.I have made this my memory garden.My yellow lab, who we had to put down two years ago had a silver collar and it now hangs and rusts on a branch.Another branch has an ornament that is a Celtic angel playing a harp that was my mother's.It sways gently in the breeze.The clay cross was a gift from my precious niece who went to Sedona,Arizona.She breaths out generosity to the all who know her, and this cross brings her essence to my tree.

Under the tree, which gently shades the area,is a bog garden that my youngest son created.He brought plants and bushes that he admires when he canoes along the river so that I could see and enjoy them.Cardinal flowers that are a startling red attract hummingbirds and the sugar bush has purple straw flowers that are just so unique one must admire them.He worked hard to put all that in and it is the base for all the rest.

I had nothing that I could hang that was a momento of my sister until I found a wind chime with an amethyst stone that hangs in its center .This was her February birthstone.The purple plastic circle at the end of the middle string also calls to mind her favorite flower,the lilac.There is a song,"Jeannine, I Dream of Lilac Time".I think my mother named her after that very old song.So now this chime hangs in the tree.My sister lived to create beauty and she would have loved the colors.

The card that came with the wind chime says that the Amethyst represents the Crown Chakra,which is related to thought and self-knowledge.This stone also enhances peace of mind,and bestows stability,strength and contentment.Where she is now,she is bathed in these things and more and when the gentle chime sings I am reminded of this.

a small white hand

My first memory is of a small white hand being thrust under the green lake water in my direction.We were in Winsted,Connecticut on a dock at my aunt's house and I am four years old.I don't know where my parents were.I had leaned over the lake too far and fallen into deep water.The person on the other end of the white hand was my sister who reached down and pulled me up.She was eight years old.

Before she died in 2008, I sent her a card with an angel on the front and thanked her for saving my life.We weren't speaking and hadn't for four years but I think she read it.I told her that she was a hero because at that young age she could have easily just run to get my parents.Instead, she acted.

When she was in the hospital ,I went to see her.My husband and niece stood outside the door in case screaming started.All she said when I entered was ,"Oh."I took her hand in mine and refused to let go until it was time to leave.It was a different hand, cold as marble,and if I had held it for a week it wouldn't have warmed.Her heart was failing.

My sister left us on December 13, the feast of Saint Lucy whose name means "light" and I think of the sunlight that shone through the green water that day in Winsted and the hand that was the only one around to save me.