My Younger Sister

I got a package today. It was the headstone for my younger sister, Sharon. She was born a little over 49 years ago. She was only a year and a few months younger than me. She lived less than a day on earth.

Sharon was born premature and small. In 1965, weighing a little over a pound was a death sentence. Her little lungs just weren’t developed enough. Mom and Dad had her body buried in a little cemetary in Walnut Shade, Missouri. At the time they didn’t name her, simply putting a little marker by her grave which said simply, “Baby Stone.”

We didn’t talk much about Baby Stone growing up. Mom did say she would have liked to have named her Sharon. I remember wondering often what it would have been like to have had a younger sister just a grade behind me. As it was, all five of us kids were three grades apart growing up, with me next to the youngest. I envisioned Sharon and I being very close.

My Mom passed from this life a little over a year ago. She mentioned after she became ill that she would like to get a gravestone for Sharon. My older sister, Cindy, was the one who finally ordered the stone. It arrived at my house today, and with my brother and Dad we will place it finally at my younger sister’s grave tomorrow.

A friend of my sister had a dream about my Mom shortly after she died. In the dream she said my Mom looked much younger and was walking with another young woman, arm in arm, smiling. At first we thought the other woman could have been one of my Mom’s two sisters who preceded her in death. Then we thought possibly it was her own Mom, Grandma Margaret.

Then I thought, maybe it was Sharon.

What will Sharon be like in Heaven? What will my wife and my two little babies who passed away before birth be like? It’s a mystery, but one I look forward to seeing the answer. I know this. It will be a joyous reunion.

I have mixed emotions as I contemplate placing this headstone tomorrow. There will be sadness on several levels, however mixed with hope and wonderment. Sharon Rose Stone lived on this earth for less than a day, but lives on eternally. I can’t wait to meet my younger sister. I sense she will be a kindred spirit.