by Kim Michael
Copyright 2023 All rights Reserved
"I wrote this for Facebook and it was a memorial for my wife's sister (Tina) who had suffered with emphysema for years. She also was one of my most ardent and cherished supporters, often calling me up to give me her thoughts which were always positive. After I had finished The Red Truck of Christmas she told my wife to be sure to have me near my phone the following day. She wanted to talk to me about the RED TRUCK, but by then, her breathing had gotten so difficult that she couldn't. It was a call that had never happened and I never received another call from her. And even now, I find the silence…deafening.
I am putting this memorial on my website in the hopes that others who have lost loved ones will find comfort in it, and I dedicate this to Tina. Rest in Peace." km
In the early morning hours of Christmas Day 2021, we received the sad news that Tina Dancey, Joann’s sister had lost her battle with emphysema. Loss is never easy, but it is how we deal with it that determines how life goes on. Several years back, I ran into a friend of mine on an airplane coming home, and he mentioned that he had lost his wife Laurie to cancer. After thirty years of a happy marriage he told me he realized he and his family had two choices, they could either morn her loss to the point of being paralyzed, which is what would have happened if they chose to do so, or they could celebrate her life, and live in the memory of all the wonderful years they had together. They decided to do the later.
I remembered that meeting this summer when we attended the celebration of life for Joann’s sister. Burt, her husband, delivered the eulogy and at the outset he mentioned the one thing that he would always remember was the sound of her laughter, particularly when she and her sisters were together.
Now, if you knew the Rebuffoni sisters: Tina, Joann and Kay; you automatically knew what he meant. Whenever they were together you could hear their laughter filling every nook and cranny, of every room, upstairs, down stairs, every empty space, even echoing outside with the doors shut. It was contagious. The kind of laughter rising loud and unbridled and unapologetic, up from the deepest part of that place that only sisters share.
It’s easy when you lose someone to dwell on the loss, feeling as if the empty place in your heart can never be filled again, and yet, even now, I can close my eyes and hear them sitting at the big oak table in Tina’s kitchen, tears streaming down their faces, waves of laughter washing over them. This Christmas, maybe more than most, I realize, as long as you can remember the sound of that laughter, the spirit that made it…is never really gone.