Pythian Games

This was written in response to the ‘Saddest Words’ prompt on

http://www.squidoo.com/ilpostino

Once Upon a time, I was married, and loved my husband’s family as I do my blood kin.  Some of them were easier to love than others, my husband’s sisters Kathy and Melanie I still call one another sisters and our love grew, deeply and permanently.  From each of them I was blessed with a beautiful, loveable niece.

Our Kathy lived near my husband and I in Corvallis, Oregon with her sons, Brian and Brandon, and her daughter Roberta Joliene (Bobbie Jo).  Brandon and Bobbie were of school age and I watched Bobbie after Kindergarten at my house. 

Bobbie and I had wonderful times together, puddle-jumping, cooking, and other such delights filled our afternoons.  I called her, “Ma Petite.” , and I became ‘Aunt Bear’., I wondered why she called me that until the day she tried her best to wrap child-sized arms around my Earth Mother hips, looked up at me from adoring green eyes and said, “I call you my Aunt Bear, do you know why?”

“No, ma petite, I don’t know.  Why do you call me your Aunt Bear?”

“Because huggung you is like hugging a teddy bear!!”  She squeezed as tightly as she could, and I hugged her back.

“Oh thank you sweetie!!”  I managed to say this around the lump filling my throat.

Bobbie had been the flower girl at my wedding, and my husband caught this utterly darling photo of her:

Time does what it does best and passed, Kathy moved back to her beloved New York, I separated from my husband and returned to Arizona; Bobbie and Brandon grew up.

Kat and I kept in touch over the years, we have now been friends for over 30 years and will most likely be friends until we return to the First Home of All Souls.  Kat has not had an easy life by any road, and last year she was dealt the cruellest blow any mother could suffer.

In August of 2007, at the age of 18, Bubbie Jo passed away suddenly, leaving a silent, aching void behind.

So young, pretty, and loving; far too soon to be taken from her family and friends.

Last weekend I dreamed of our Bobbie Jo, as she was when I was her Aunt Bear.  She came to me and asked a gift of me, one I must do, although in my heart I would not do it .  She held my hand, suffused with love and trust and  asked this simple gift of me.

“Let me go.”

So now, although I still weep and hear her voice in my heart; the hand of my spirit opens, and Bobbie Jo flies; bright and happy into the arms of All-Mother, who holds her in love and tenderness until we shall meet again.

And I, I must say the saddest words;

“Good-bye, ma Petite, and Gods’peed to you.”