Happy Birthday Lonnie

There are two birthday posts for September 25. I will do the hard one first. Lonnie would have been 23 years old today. I love to look at these pictures, but it's also hard. It's really really hard. Yes, I do remember the day she was born very well. I was 11 years old and in 6th grade. My parents woke me up in the night to let me know they were leaving for the hospital. They left us at home. Laura was 7 and Lisa was almost 4. (Man, I was a responsible 6th grader!)I got up and sat on the couch for a while, too excited to go back to sleep right away. Laura woke up and sat next to me. I told her mom and dad had left and she seemed fine with that. (The next morning she started freaking out because she couldn't find mom and dad and she didn't remember getting up with me)! In the morning, we got dressed and went over to the next door neighbors. They got us off to school and whatever. I could hardly concentrate during school and was so excited when I came around the corner from the bus stop and saw that my dad was home. I went in the front door and he was asleep on the couch. There were all these papers on the counter, so I started sifting through them, looking for the coveted piece of information: Was it a brother or a sister?!? I found it on one of them and I was very excited. Three sisters! My dad took us that night to see her. Lisa said she looked Chinese. She had a big nose and she was VERY long and thin. I don't know exactly how long and thin, but I remember when I first held her, her legs hung down over the side of my leg. My mom told me to get off the air conditioner while I was holding the baby.

Lonnie was like my own baby doll. I loved to feed her, change her, get her dressed, rock her to sleep, get her out of bed. (Hello moms, how awesome would that be?) I was like a built-in Nanny. And I was free!

I am sad today, because I miss my baby sister. I don't know if it's appropriate, or how it works, but I would like to ask Jesus to tell her Happy Birthday, and that I love her, miss her and think about her every day. We all do.
Carson William? Is that you? This was taken at Christmas time. The resemblance between them is striking and seems almost

supernatural. What a gift when I look at him and see so much of her. Even his personality, the way he talks and his mannerisms are like hers. When she was 4 years old, she broke her arm by tripping on her towel while running down the hall (take note all you who have children running through your house). I remind my kids of this often because I just know they're going to get hurt. She had to have surgery on her elbow and had a huge scar on the top and bottom of it.

This is on a trip to Disney.

Brent and Lonnie have the same birthday. They are 16 years apart. This picture was taken when she came to Florida with us one time, when I was pregnant with Hunter. We used to be the Three Amigos. She used to spend almost every Friday night with us when we first moved here. Eating pizza and watching rented movies. She would hang out with me on Saturdays while Brent was working. Sometimes she would grocery shop with me. When she was an early teen, she would get really annoyed that she had to share her birthday with Brent. In the later years, she was annoyed with herself for that. She said, "Oh, poor Brent." He didn't really mind though. She was always with us for significant things. She was there the day we got engaged. She was their every time we moved. She was there for the birth of every one of our babies. She was there the night that we got the phone call that Brent's sister Kim had died. Every time I think of some significant thing in my life, she was there. She came with my mom and dad to drop me off at college. She stayed up all night waiting for us to arrive when we first came to visit them in Atl. Man I miss her.

Lonnie and her boys.