When I turned 18, I honest to gosh thought all my pimples would clear up magically. When I turned 21—hey, I’m a grown-up! Then I thought maybe at 30, I’d magically mature. So far, it isn’t happening. I find myself turning to much younger people all the time for advice and wisdom. Maybe some people never grow up. But I still repeat my mistakes and create wreckage in my life. Maybe 60 will be the magic age.

I’ve been pretty much incommunicado these last few months because life and its inevitable lessons have been kicking my butt. Bill and I have separated (one loud violent argument too many for me) and I’m living in a (nice, clean, modern, quiet) little trailer in a little retirement village (I was recently bitched out by the board for speeding—15 in a 10 mph zone—they want this whipper snapper to settle down) in Parowan, Utah and working in a school for troubled girls.

There are pluses to my evolution: I’m learning about the journey and the need to follow our hearts. I’m experiencing a time of inner and outer quiet that is allowing introspection and hopefully, self improvement.

However, I’ve experienced a terrible loss this last few weeks. My sister, Dessie (who I wrote about in my personal blog a little over a year ago) died April 20 at the age of 51 of pneumonia complicated by MRSA. I am bereft.

This is a picture of the five of us on Dessie’s 8th birthday. I’m on the far right, shorter than my tomboy little sister, Chris (who now is a big cheese at the university and dresses to the nines, the epitome of style and class). Dessie is the fourth one down the line. I realized looking at the picture, which I’d never seen, that Dessie and I look a lot alike. Her eyes were different than mine, a wonderful green and cat-shaped—more sparkly and brimming with laughter, but she is definitely my sister!

This is a longer version of a tribute I’ve written about Dessie for my column. I apologize for my maudlin self-indulgent mood. I hope this gives you a picture of the magnificent person who has gone from my life.

“Dessie is a little giggle… “—that’s a line from a hokey little poem I wrote about my four sisters years ago. I was trying to capture each of them, what I loved and enjoyed, in one sentence. Because we were essentially abandoned by our parents, we had, at a very young age, learned to depend upon each other. We were —and are—closer than most siblings. While this has been problematic in many areas of our lives, as we age, I’m immensely grateful for the gift that my sisters have been in my life.

Dessie was the fourth of us girls. She was indeed, a little giggle. She had the most infectious laugh and could find humor in the darkest of moments. She was talented musically and always mourned the loss of her career as a ballerina or a famous singer. After a sisters’ night out to see “The Turning Point” Dessie sobbed all the way home because she should have been a star. The rest of us ignored her until I couldn’t hold it in anymore and cracked up over her dramatics, to the tune of her weepy, “Shut up, Arlene. You don’t know what it’s like to have talent.” Or a reasonable facsimile.

She found a home in Alamo, Nevada just before high school. The people of Alamo took her into their hearts and she flourished. She was popular, a cheerleader all her high school years and junior class secretary and prom queen. She married (and later divorced) the valedictorian.

Dessie’s proclamations of talent were not without merit. She could dance and sing and lead music supremely well. For several years, she led a large regional childrens choir in Las Vegas which performed all over town. She had a way with kids, a leadership ability combined with an innate instinct for teaching that produced success every time she worked with young people. She was, for many years, the young womens president in her ward. Her boundless energy and optimism made her perfect for working with young women, who I consider the bane of the church.

She always had a big project going. I recall several times watching her pull up in their old truck, pick up a roto-tiller out of the back and proceed to till up not only her own garden spot, but several of the neighbors. She’d befriended several elderly widows and she would drag all her kids over to clean up their yards, yelling loud instructions and laughing often.

She was wonderful in countless ways, but not perfect. Don’t you find perfect people a bit tedious and boring? No, she was supremely and interestingly flawed, my sister. For instance, from the time she was a tiny girl, she could cuss in the most interesting ways. She’d lose her temper, a small whirlwind objecting to her big sisters picking on her, and call us terrible names as we stood there in amazement.

This temper got her into no end of trouble as a child, especially in some of the rough inner city neighborhoods of Long Beach where we lived. She started many a fight. Didn’t end most of them, but heck, she sure tried. Chris was always stepping in to rescue her as she was being pummeled, still yelling “I’ll kick your ass, you *******!” I myself would be sitting under a tree, lost in a book, oblivious to their fight. Chris would calmly pull the offending party off Dessie, punch them and send them off home while Dessie stood there, tears streaming down her dirty little face, shouting insults.

We’ve all tried in some way to redeem ourselves from the awful baggage of our white trash childhood and Dessie was no exception. She looked out for the less fortunate, taking groceries, mowing lawns, or providing a caring ear for the downtrodden. She didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word “no.”

We gathered at her house for our best parties, her loud laughter ripping through the rooms as we ate barbecued food and joked while our kids ran in and out. She was my best friend for much of my adult life and I spent long hours on the phone with her. I could tell her anything, I felt more comfortable around her, more myself, than with any other human being. The same is true of my other sisters, also, they are a part of me. I don’t feel I need to explain myself with them.

Again, nobody’s perfect. We had (and will probably always have) loud fights and disagreements. Strong opinionated screwed up women—what’s not for “Brother Contention” to love? But some bonds cannot be broken, even with a fight over whose kid started the fight.

Later, the wounds of childhood began to scar in terrible ways and life caught up with Dessie. She lost a lot as she struggled to deal with her inner pain but the most valuable thing she lost was herself. She lost the giggle. After the deaths of my children, the loss of my precious sister to mental illness has been the greatest loss of my life. Until now.

Dessie showed up unexpectedly at my house about six months ago, the same old smile, and for a moment, the laugh, the humor. I kept thinking “this might be the last time you see her” and I hugged her repeatedly, feeling her warmth, her aliveness, trying to savor and save it for later. I tried to pour my love into her and silently begged her to come back to us.

Still, the phone call from her son (sobbing, shaking, barely understandable) telling me his mother was dying (of pneumonia complicated by MRSA)on April 20 was a shock. This last few weeks have been a blur as we planned and executed her funeral. I remember moments. Her still warm body in the hospital, wrapping myself around her and rocking and sobbing, not wanting to leave her for a moment, but having to. Having to. God.

My sister, Chris, totally stepping up, staying in California and breaking through the red tape so we could bring Dessie’s body back to Utah for burial. To save money, she rented a van and drove Dessie back herself. I will always respect her for that. The Seinfield funeral that began with an organist who couldn’t hit a note (that was such a treat as I led the music and finally the congregation just burst into laughter, Dessie had to love that) and ended with a big “screw you” (from Dessie’s boyfriend to her children) playing of Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You” at the cemetery. After “Amazing Grace” and the dedication of the grave. My poor mother in her wheelchair looking confused and traumatized as she sat by the large picture of her daughter which had been placed by the casket. My grandson refusing to leave my side as I cried, patting my shoulder and periodically hugging me.

I thank God for that last visit from Dessie, for that opportunity to tell her goodbye and “I love you.” Grief is a strange word, or maybe experience is a better word. Each death, each loss is unique because each person is unique to each other person. We cannot know how those who grieve feel; however, we will all inevitably lose those we love. So sooner or later, when someone tells you they’ve lost someone, you will only look at them and know there’s not a word you can say to ease that kind of pain. You can only, in seeming contradiction, know how they feel.

I’ve complained and whined and moaned a lot about the deaths of my loved ones. Truly, my heart has been broken over and over. However, I think I’ve learned something from this experience. Just a glimmer, a quick glimpse of how grieving can elevate one’s spirit instead of destroying it. I hope that God will work with me further in this and I can honor my precious sister by living my life with more joy and gusto and less fear. Blessed are we who mourn.