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November 03, 2005

Judy & Jo

I wrote about my Aunt Jo, who died in August, a month or so ago. The day after I heard that she'd passed, I brought this photo in and set it on my desk. That first day, or three, I would tear up every time it caught my eye. Now, it just makes me happy to look at it.

My mom is 32 in this photo, Jo, 41. They're sitting in the grass, barefoot, at what was then their brother's farm, but what had been the farm they lived on as girls. It was in that farmhouse that Jo would kick my 4-year-old mother out of bed and where my mom got pecked in the head by a really mad chicken.

Uncle Bub, Jo's husband, was still living and a within a month or two after this picture was taken, my mom got pregnant with me.

They look so happy here, sisters, barefoot in the grass. I don't know whose motorcycle that is, or whose crazy '70s car. Maybe that chair was there for their grandmother, who would've been about 99 that year. I don't know who took the picture, or what kind of conversation was interrupted when it was snapped. I do know that they look happy and that they were surely sharing secrets. Sisters do that, I'm told. I don't have a sister, never will, but my mother does, and sometimes, that's close enough.

Posted by hannah at 05:03 PM