sunday & co.

My youngest sister, the one with the chocolate brown locks and powder blue eyes that have melted my heart since she was a tot, has a song that sums up the last 6 years of her life. It's new to the airwaves. Haunting. And gives me a glimpse into a world I didn't know she lived in ... and this breaks the same heart which she's always melted. The last few months have been impossibly hard for her. Within a month's span, she found herself back on the Dating Block. And then she lost her beloved Reese (her 6 year old boxer, named after my sister's Hollywood look-alike). But, as is always the case with my youngest sister, she makes the hardest situations in life seem easy. Ridiculously independent, and with the resolve of another woman with chocolate brown locks and powder blue eyes (whom we both call Mama), my sister doesn't like to dwell on the negative. And nothing could sum that up more than this photo session. Last year at this time, we were in a field of wildflowers with her Then Family. Fast forward 11 months, and it was very important to her that we shoot her Now Family: her new puppy, Millie, who could never replace Reese, but has certainly filled a void and inspired so much love; and her just turned 5 year old son, Kelton Patrick. My Kelto. As much as I worry about my sister and all that life has brought her, I worry most for my K. But then I see him snuggling up to his Millie after having defended a teddy bear and a race car from the evil alien, or having a tender moment with his Mama after arguing with her that he likes Cold Dogs ... not Hot ... and I realize that all the things that make me so proud of Trish, are so evident in him. He's such a strong boy, full of life and mischief ... and he has handled the last few months as gracefully and as beautifully as his Mama. My sister has this game she created, and has played, most of her life. I think it started when she was 9 or 10, and going through the most incredibly awkward Tween Years one could imagine. It's called, "What's Your Favorite Thing about Me?" She will ask this in the middle of Thanksgiving Dinner, to the cashier who just rang up her groceries, her co-workers ... basically anyone. My family and I tease her to no end about it, and we all roll our eyes whenever she asks to play... and then we play along. Like most people who meet my sister, and then fall instantly love with her, I have so many favorite things about her. The fact that she still plays that game, 20 years later, for one thing; how she walks into a room of complete strangers and leaves with vacation plans with all of them; ... Too many to list, and this post has gone on entirely too long. But I'll end with this. I have a song for my sister. It's not the one she played for me all weekend .. it's one I've had for her for years. I would hear it on the radio and imagine her making the drive from Abilene to Lubbock on the long interstate to attend Texas Tech. I have always felt it summed up her desire to grow up, be on her own, and to live life to the fullest ... and now that same song takes on an entirely new meaning when I hear it, and I love it for her even more. And when I hear it now, I think of her on a much different road, headed somewhere far away from where she's been, yet back to where she first started: "Who doesn't know what I'm talking about? Who's never left home, who's never struck out, To find a dream and a life of their own. A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone ... Many precede and many will follow. A young girl's dream no longer hollow. It takes the shape of a place out west But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed ..." I love you, Sunday. Enjoy your sneaky.