May You Always Have an Angel By Your Side



M ay you always have an angel by your side. Watching out for you in all the things you do. Reminding you to keep beliving in brighter days. Finding ways for your wishes and dreams to come true.
G iving you hope that is as certian as the sun. Giving you the strength of serenity as your guide. May you always have love, and confort, and courage, and...
M ay you always have an angel by your side. Someone there to catch you if you fall. Encouraging your dreams, inspiring your happiness, holding your hand and helping you through it all.
I n all of our days, our lives are always changing. Tears come along as well as smiles. Along the roads you travel, may the miles be a thousand times more lovley than lonley. May they give you gifts that never, ever,end: someone wonderful to love and a dear friend in whom you can confide. May you have rainbows after every storm. May you have hopes to keep you warm.

And...
May You Always Have
an Angel By Your Side

~Douglas Pagels~

A sister is family... She's a combination friend, companion, sharer of dreams,and shaper of memories. When you're a child, a sister is a pal sharing playtime, parties, holidays, and a thousand-and-one adventures.
A sister's a part of your earliest memories..the sweet, the funny, the tender. A sister is a link between wonderful yesterdays and hopeful tomorrows. She's someone you may see often or seldom... but never enough.
A sister is special, and she makes you feel that way too! A sister is someone to confide in. She shares your deepest thoughts, your innermost secrets. A sister encourages you, belives in you, and gives you loving advise... and then stands by you whatever you do.
A sister is a companion. In thought or in person she will walk or run with you along the highways and byways of life.
A sister can be as different from you as day and night. Yet, she is still part of your world... and someone you will always love.
What is a sister?
A very special someone... especially when she's my sister!

M y sister was born on December 1, 1947. I remember it well. At the age of five I was very impressed when I got a phone call from my mother asking ~me~, what we should name my new baby sister. I chose Judy!
We grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. We were very close from the day my parents brought her home. She has been my constant companion and friend ~My Little Sister~
We reminisce over the good and bad times we have had together over the years. The hiking trips we would take with our very close friends, my best friend and her little sister. We were a team.

In those days it was fine for four little girls to be gone all day with a picnic lunch, exploring our little world. At the time it must have seemed as though we were a million miles from home in our secret place we called ~Our Club House~. Now that I think back it was probably one quarter mile from home.
We spent one whole summer between there and going swimming in a pond ( if our parents would have seen it they would have had a heart attack) but God protected us and we came through it fine. She remembers the railroad ties we crossed to get there with only water under them and being scared a train would come and we wouldn't make it across in time !! There are too many fond memories to name here, just believe me when I tell you there were many,many in those years.



We grew older and Judy and I stayed very close. During our teen years we had our ups and downs, as do all siblings. Even so our favorite saying was, and still is, ~hey we're sisters~with a little lisp and a lot of laughing. We would drive our children and husbands away from us when at the beach, or in a park we would put our arms around each other and with a cute little step turn and do our we're sisters act .



I moved away during my later teen years and started my own family while in Germany. With letters we stayed in touch for three long years. I worried constantly what she was doing with her young life. I still remember the night I returned home, we went into her bedroom and I grilled her for hours about her life as a teenager and any thing else I might have missed in the time I was away. We were together for a few weeks until my home was ready, this time in Arkansas.

About four months later I was to call on my sister to come to me. My two year old son was found to have a very serious heart problem. The doctors wanted to do experimental surgery on him and I was almost full term with my second child. The open-heart surgery he was to have done was practically unheard of in the early sixties. She came to help me through the ordeal we were about to encounter. Not many years after, my marriage having failed I moved home with my children and moved Judy in with me to help me get my life back together.

It was at this time in her life she met her future husband, whom I welcomed with open arms, he was wonderful to her. Judy had become a woman. The time had flown since we were mere children embarking on life, as though we were in control of the moon and stars.







Time slipped away as we raised our children Judy had three now a boy and twin girls. I had remarried and had two more children a daughter finally, and then another boy. Our families were very close and together as often as possible but…time passed so quickly, and we drifted on in different directions.

Things got hard for Judy and her family as the steelmills closed and her husband lost his job. They were moving to Florida to look for work and we were moving at the same time only to Ohio. We would be parted again, but not for long. Soon my husband and I, and our children found ourselves traveling to Florida a few time a year and we picked up where we left off with our family outing's, this time, most often, at the ocean. Life was wonderful again. Our children were growing up to embark on their own sea of life. Now it was time to set back and relax. The Summer years of our life were ending and Fall was creeping closer. Too soon winter would be upon us.

With our children grown and off having children of their own, we settled down to life as grandparents. Judy and her husband moved to Virginia and were both working as were my husband and I. We didn't get together quite as often. The traveling was done mostly by Judy now and she would come see me a few times a year, as her job allowed her a little more freedom.

It was late March of 1995, Judy began having a lot if digestive problems, and just not feeling well in general. Having just gone through a year of terrible gastroenteritis, I was concerned for her. My digestive system had all but shut down. I was not even back to normal yet, and I thought this was happening to her. It would not have been unusual, our systems being so similar. I was to be proven so very wrong!




Sisters By Plan~~~~~Friends By Choice