This is my story about an extraordinary and exquisite soul. It’s an experiential accounting of the rare and exceptional. Of a person who would never let on to others just how deep the river flows. But I’ll make an attempt.

When we were children, she always had an eye to the horizon. Whether under the spectacle of a polychromatic sunset, or the darker hours faced in a home not always safe making. Her eyes were at the horizon. Not as in the future, but the horizon right in front of her – right before her – right here – right now. And if you were with her – you got go too. 

She has forever been a creative force. Creativity for her has not simply been about expressing herself. It’s ever about discovery. There is not a cat on the Serengeti with more patience and calm to lay in wait for a perfect, fleeting, precise and instinctively anticipated moment. For her, that moment has been to discover – to witness and to comprehend. And as my good fortune would have it – also to share the joy and wonder she’d found. 

One of the earliest I can recall is the process of metamorphosis from caterpillar to Monarch Butterfly. I mean from the eggs laid upon a blade of milkweed, to the vulnerable and majestic pageantry of unfurling and drying of wings. Whether King or Queen, the splendor in first flight of the monarch – affirming the royalty for which it was named. 

This is an  assertion of mine – a conclusion to which I have arrived over 65 years of tagging along – one way or another, with my sister Mia. Inherent within her was always the knowing. That the greatest gift to receive, and the darkest deprivation to befall a person – both have to do with access to the beauty of creation and all that we can have and know from it. A channel that then and today, pours through her like a wellspring.

What compels me to want to share all of this other than to “out her and her brilliance” because I’m ornery like that, but also because her acts of love and kindness – her priority over what is important is a story that I find restorative. Not only because I’m among the beneficiaries, but because of the humanity within it. 

When I reflect on my life, as far back as aI am able to today, she has always looked out for me. I remember her pointing out a Black Widow crossing a log on some creek in Nevada. Just across the other side. She leapt a bit in front of me and squatted down low. I followed suit and she explained to me that that was a poisonous spider. She reminded me to look first anywhere, to note the irregular web, and the cotton balls that might make her mean. It was somewhere in my memory of the cat tails at our secret place among the mansions –  The Three Lakes. I can’t quote the words – but the memory was clear about all that had  transpired. 

I remember the morning we we set out with line and poles. I don’t really remember sneaking out, or the “casino strip morning curfew” police car ride home. I vaguely remember standing on the porch (as my mother put it) “the police were at the door with my children in tow- I thought they were asleep in bed.” 

What I do remember is her handing me a long stick – a stalk of bamboo I think, showing me how to fish for the crawdads under a bridge before dawn hidden beneath the sparkling lights of “The Biggest Little City in the World.” How to wait and not to try to get them, but to let them. But what stands out most in my memory, is her not letting me stand up to fish for them. And her handling the prepping of the rods.

The thing about memories this far back, is pieces of them are picture memories, and others are the indelible impression. The component that determines whether in good or bad situations- whether there was trauma or love. The value element. This was pure adventure in the language of love and discovery. These were the best days of my childhood. 

Even back then, I guess, my personal agency was something I hated to relinquish. The picture memory is my sister sitting beside me and fishing the way she wanted me to – sitting down. She had been standing – leaning – perhaps swinging from kite string, I don’t recall. But she sat down with me because she wasn’t  going to give me any kite string to swing from – or let me lean out over concrete boxes and the turbulent rushing of the Truckee River.  I was five after all, and she was a leader at eight. I’m certain today, I was as safe with her then as I have ever been, or ever will be. That memory – its feeling is so deep and clear. How much she knew inherently – even back then.  Even in the battle zones … and perhaps in large part, because of them. 

There was this ‘equity/fairness’ principle she always stood upon. And ‘fairness’ is not always what you receive up-line in the hierarchy of down-line acknowledgement. Oh sure … there were occasions she took license. But those were always for a good cause. To teach me something. To keep me from harm. To show me things I never would have discovered on my own. My love of beauty was imparted to me, by a person gifted to see it, to reveal it, to express it and to embody it – my sister.