Love Notes for Annie

On Sunday 2.12.12, I got a call.  Anna Rosalie Ferguson, my little sister Annie, was in the hospital.  They weren't sure what was wrong.  Only an hour or so earlier, Annie had posted on her FB page that she used to dance around to Whitney Houston songs when she was a kid.  She finished the post with "RIP sweet lady."

Who knew that in a few short hours, that very phrase would be for, not just from, Annie.  It was a brain aneurysm.  She died.  Aged 28.

Annie was the first member of our extended HumFam to bring us a treasured child.  She is also the first to depart from us into the Great Mystery.  There's a beauty in that.  A hard beauty, but beauty.  And Annie was all about the beauty.  I wish you could've seen her.  She'd have made you smile.  Or maybe drool.  I mean, *seriously.*  That girl was *sumthin*.
  
I fly out very early tomorrow morning, to attend to family and to attend her services.  I am awash in mixed feelings of joy at seeing beloveds I see far too seldom, and sorrow in the reason I'll be seeing them.

Annie was a treasure, a gem, a vibrant, vivacious spark of the Divine in a body.  She was also fully human, riddled with foibles and challenges--not the least of which was being a young, single mother.  I was there with Annie and family when her daughter Korazon Pearl came into the world, and I will be there to commemorate Annie's leaving of this world.  That is a blessing.

When a HumFam sister, Jen, called to tell me she was going, my first teary, sobbing comment was, "I wish I could go."  Shortly thereafter, I got a call from Kari in Chicago, saying that if I could, by any chance, manage the journey she'd catch me on that end and care for me.  After I told my partner Lo I'd gotten that message. Lo commented, "Well, you never know.  If you're really being called to go, maybe you could ask the community, and they might help.

I never even had to ask.  Less than 4 minutes later, I got a text from a member of our Tribe, telling me that she'd start a collection if money was the only thing that was keeping me from going.

It was.  Within minutes, I am told, the funds were collected.  Minutes.  Our community, the extended family to which Annie and I belong, stepped up.  I was told that (and I cry as I write this) that they felt Annie would want me there and they wanted me there, too, to represent our HumFam.  I am an envelope for love notes to Annie, because my community asked and offered me this tearful, joyful task.  I am a container for all the tears at Annie's loss, and there have been many.  I will do all I can to get big enough to hold both the love and grieving, sorrowful tears.  So many synchronicities occurred in such a short time that I choose to believe I am meant to go.  And I am going.

Some of the HumFam will also be there.  I can't help but wonder how we'll be met there--the other, weird, Californian members of Annie's family, showing up to see her off.  Regardless of the differences in geography and culture, we all have one thing in common:

We love Annie.  And Kora.  And Patty. And Kimmers & Daniel, too.

The funds remaining form the airfare collection will be going into a fund for Kora and Patty.  Patty thought she was done being a Mom like that, and now she begins again.  I'll keep you posted on that as ways to donate become available.  Many of us are as committed to Kora now as we were when she was born.  We promised Annie would never do without--and neither will her daughter, if we can help it.

Meanwhile, I hold my grief and love in the same envelope as the love and grief of our HumFam for my little sister Annie.  Your prayers, blessings, and light are most welcome.  If anyone is particularly good at health stuff, some sort of blessing for not getting sick on a plane while traveling to the Midwest in winter would be awesome.  My instructors have been awesome around all of this, but the world and graduate school--despite my feelings that somehow they should stop to and take a knee to commemorate the passing of my sister--keeps on spinning and I'll be back in classes on Tuesday.

Here comes an envelope, Annie--full of love notes.  See you soon, baby.

If you'd like to see pix, go to Facebook and find me, Patty Stamos, Teresa Howell, Jennefer White and Jenn Asspittle.