Six years ago next week, we said goodbye to my sister Dori after she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm on Mother’s Day and there was no hope for recovery. The Mother’s Day & Memorial Day holidays always bring it all back for me.

Dori was the only immediate family member to come & visit me in Maine since I moved here in 2000. Two of those trips were for fun and two of the other trips were for MY brain aneurysms. During one of those trips she left a hair barrette behind when staying at our house. I remember letting her know she had left it and asked her if she wanted it mailed back. She told me to keep it.

Well, I’m so glad I DID keep it. I realized this week It’s one of the very few things of Dori’s that I have. I asked for one of her garden fairies at her memorial service and I set it out each year. I knew she loved these beautiful statues so there certainly is a sentimental attachment to them. But how can a simple plastic & metal hair barrette fill me with emotions?

This barrette meant nothing to Dori. She used it and it held her long hair. That’s it. And I’m pretty sure when I discovered the barrette in our guest room that it held a strand or two of her hair. It’s ironic since the last time I saw her was in the hospital and all of her hair had been shaved off for surgery to insert a drain. 

I’d prefer to remember her with that long thick hair and, ever so slowly, the painful memories of seeing her in the hospital are being replaced with happier, healthier ones and I DO wear that barrette.