My Tribute (Thank you, Sis)

Honoring My Sis

Last night was a full moon and I being not aware that it was.  In the middle of being very distraught, it hit me that it was probably a full moon!  This was one of the many topics my sister-in-law Barbara and I agreed on, how the moon does affect emotions and the energies surrounding all things.

Besides being a full moon, it was (is) the time for us to honor a beautiful soul who has transcended this earthly realm.  My sis, Barbara Dell Rathjens Wade, my brother Grover’s wife. 

I met Barb at age 11, she and Grover married a year or two later, but Barb coming into my life changed my life forever.  I only had a brother, much older and it was so exciting to me to have a sister, although much older too. 

Barb became much more to me than she knew at the time.  All trials and joys of just living life sometimes kept us farther away from each other than we wanted, we always could come back to where we started, sisters. 

To simply say Barb was my “sis” cannot begin to describe our relationship!  Although my brother and I had a special bond, there was so much more that Barb and I have had.  She navigated me through pre-teen life and stood by me and directed me through the teen years and as I became an adult and mother and later just simply “sis” we grew closer and closer in areas that go much more deeply than sisters. 

She was my teacher, not only in school but in life and in writing and in relationships.  She became my mentor, my fellow writer, my editor (and I was hers!), my spiritual sister.  We were each other’s confidants, sharing and keeping close to our hearts hurts and fears hopes and dreams. 

We shared our writings to each other sometimes and to no one else because we both realized sometimes it was a way for us to simply survive life.  Then other times like during the 80’s we both were published in a women’s poetry magazine “Piecework”, created and published in Oklahoma City by several well-known women poets of Oklahoma.  Thus, began our camaraderie of writing!  

Encouraging each other, critiquing, editing, and giving each other lots of love when we were rejected and giving each other lots of love when we were accepted! 

I know, physically, Barb cannot edit for me any longer (which she was still doing just last month!), but I know in my heart my sis will continue to be by my side showing me the way and cheering me on!

I will miss our laughing until we cry, I will miss our hours of contemplating our spirituality, I will miss my sis. 

My Sis

My secret keeper.

My comrade of sorrows.

My biggest and best support

And defender,

From childhood into Senior hood.

My friend.

My mentor.

My soul sister.

God was the reason

We found each other.

Taken from Piecework, Spring 1988 written by Barb:

Metamorphosis II

I, for one, have labored hours

               Giving birth to masterpieces,

               filing form rejection slips,

               and searching for my final copies

               only to discover them behind a warm TV.

Seems as if they metamorphose

               Into needs of those who hold them.

In my pain I create outlets

               through great stacks of dirty dishes,

               over piles of musty clothes; then

               my husband turns them over

               drawing plays to win a game.

The baby uses them to wipe

               a guilty shoe that “got in mud”

               and when it dries, the adolescent

               forms a plan “dynamically perfected,”

               dowerly observes its maiden nosedive

               at the tube.

Sometimes…all too seldom…I will find

               It lives again beside my flower

               child’s guitar, taking root and growing

               into some symbolic needs-fulfillment.

Then I know no one on earth can pay me

               What my poem’s worth

---Barbara Dell Wade, Wagoner