RO

   I don't think I will get past this grief.  Or at least that's how it feels right now.  Grief sneaks up on you in your daily routines when you least expect it.  I keep thinking I can text my cousin and tell her something or call her and see how she is feeling.  My cousin Rose was extremely private and would not like me writing about her but I feel it's the only way to get me past or deal better with some of this pain.  So if she's reading this from heaven, she'll have to deal with it.  We grew up together in the same town and she was only a year younger.  We went to the same elementary, Jr. High and Senior High School.  We were in marching band together, only she practiced and I didn't.  After graduation, we didn't have a lot of connection other than family gatherings, until after I broke my back and moved back home with my parents.  Her and I and my brother Joe would go out together a lot and we three nuts giggled either on the drive there or when we'd go out to dinner.  Sometimes she would come to my parents house and my brother had some video of a musical that he wanted her to see.  She loved musicals and she loved going to the theatre.  She worked at Bedford Hospital where my mother worked.  I had also worked there when I was 17 and 18 and Rose's mother worked there for a while and Rose's sister Vanessa.  At that time, it was an 80 bed hospital and then in the early 80's it got bigger.  I was in there at various times with one health issue or another.  My father died there and it was kind of the Vartorella Hospital.  When my mother retired in 1988, she said to me, "You know Chrissy, I'm going to miss seeing Rose at work everyday."  Rose worked for a long time for the head of anesthesia doing the billing but her office was right in the middle of outpatient surgery and when I'd go to visit, doctors and nurses were in and out of her office and she seemed to be very well loved. Whatever they needed, she'd have it. When my mother would walk in, they all would say, "Hi Aunt Eva." In 1986 I moved into her same building not far from my parents.  It was very reasonable rent and I liked the apartment.  I could walk 14 steps downstairs and be in Rose's apt.  She had already lived there for about 5 years.  She stayed there for 16 more years and then found a much more beautiful apartment across the street. Across... the... street.  It felt like across the Atlantic.  I missed hearing her door unlatch when she knew I was coming downstairs to say hi or if we were going out together.  Some friends of mine that met her started calling her "Cousin Rose".  And this seemed to have stuck with her although I only called her Ro, Rose, Roost or my favorite, "Roostafarian".  Every time we would go to a play my brother Joe was in, a cast member would yell, "Cousin Rose!"  She loved it.  More than one person said we sounded alike on the phone.  Some folks would call her and say, "Hi Chris."  She'd have to explain that it wasn't me.  One friend of mine was driving us somewhere and if either one of us would talk, my friend would say, "This is like stereo."  Since Rose knew where she was going, my friend said, "Cousin Rose is a veritable map."

Rose had a great sense of humor.  One time we were going to a grocery store on a Saturday night and she commented on what losers we must look like going to the grocery store in our sweats on a Saturday night, as opposed to going on a date or anywhere else.  So later that night we sat on our porch.  Our building only had 8 units and we had a nice front porch.  Our landlord was very happy to see that Rose fixed it up with chairs and plants.  We started to write a song about our evening.   We did it in our best hillbilly voice.  "Ohhhhhhhhh.......we're..... going to Finast on a Saturday night, we got no dates, we got no life, that's alright, we got no money, we're going to Finast cuz we're real hungry..  I added more to the song but it would offend too many people so I won't show it.  What I can tell you is that the second verse that I made up made Rose laugh so hard that she fell off her chair.  And that was one her many gifts.  Her humor and her laughter.   

She loved her nieces and nephew and great niece and nephew.  When Rose's sister had her first child, Kayla, Rose was in heaven and then Lexie came later, and she loved her so much.  When Lexie was very little she said, "Auntie, you're BEAUTIFUL!  And Rose said, "Oh, do you think so Lexie?"  "I know so!"

Rose tried to be diplomatic about things with me.  I went on a spiritual retreat in 1989, and during that time I needed a haircut.  The lady at the retreat cut it and said that the scissors were dull and she couldn't do a good job.  It was awful.  When I came home Rose stopped over, looked at me and said, "Oh I like your hair."  Then her body shivered like Lucy did when she tasted Vitameatavegamin.  "It's so tasty too!" She takes a teaspoon and says, "Just like candy." Then her body sort of has an aftershock.  Well, that's how my cousin looked when she saw my hair.

About 1990 something,  Rose was excited to try out a new bubble maker.  Supposed to make huge bubbles.  She brought it out on the porch.  She was so careful with the bucket of soap and water and I sat and watched.  After several tries, I must have turned away for a second because before I knew what happened, it was across the street.  She got so mad that she threw the stick as far as she could.  That was the end of our bubbles.  

Her apartment was very clean and decorated beautifully.  She loved nice things if that makes any sense.   One  Saturday, she was cleaning and cleaning and then I came down to watch a movie with her that she rented.  She pulled out a large bag of teeny tiny jelly beans that were every kind of flavor.  We were eating them and guessing what flavor they were.  Then she tasted one that she didn't like.  She looked at me and in her just cleaned apartment, she threw the left over jelly bean across the living room and it hit her pristine wall.  

Before she got really sick way back in 2006, she asked me to take her to the doctor because she had a lump on her leg which turned out to be an infection due to her diabetes.  She had no idea it was out of control.  She just took her pill every day.  When she got in my car, she started dry heaving.  Then started to sob and said,  "Oh Chris, I try to be such a good person."  

You are Cousin Rose, you are.