It’s the Monthly Blog Hop for the Insecure Writers Support Group founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh.
The first Wednesday of every month, an optional question is announced that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or even a story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post. Remember, the question optional.
Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!
Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.
The awesome co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSGare Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp, Liza @ Middle Passages, and Natalie @ Literary Rambles!
January 8 question - Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?
With a six-year age difference...
My older sister Christine and I were not that close...
In fact we fought often...
And I used to tell her I hated her...
And though I loved watching her put polish on her long fingernails, she used to scratch my arms with them.
While she was in high school, she won a scholarship to Pratt Art Institute...
Her favorite things to draw were fashion models wearing clothes she designed.
One day my Barbie doll went missing...
I couldn’t imagine what had happened to her.
A few days later...
My sister returned Barbie to me along with several outfits she had made for her.
I loved my sister for that...
And I changed Barbie’s clothes often and also gave her new hairdos.
When I was thirteen, my sister got married and moved to Panama with her husband who was in the army.
I was heartbroken.
She returned twice to our home before finally moving back to the States...
And what she brought with her from Panama were tales of the jungle...
Of meeting Cuna Indians and seeing exotic jungle animals...
Like jaguarundis, tropical birds and snakes...
She also did paintings of the jungle which fascinated me.
She continued her artwork in LA becoming successful making and selling bronzes of dogs.
She sent the late Queen of England a bronze of a corgi, and in turn, my sister received an official letter from the office of the Queen thanking her. One of Christine's bronzes is also at the Ronald Reagan museum.
My sisters's name is Christine Fischer.
She has since passed...
But her bronzes and my memories of her live on.
And because of her jungle tales...
Is it any surprise that I now live in a jungle in Mexico?
And what about you?
Who did you admire growing up?
Always,
EM-Musing
Below is a story I wrote about a supernatural experience my sister and I shared.
No footprints. How could that be?
My sister and I had been walking the beach in Malibu that morning. The lapping waves of the Pacific, the cresting sun over the hills, and the architectural array of beachfront homes were a blurred reality compared to our painful conversation. Her breast cancer had returned.
“Why does God allow diseases and other bad things to happen to people?” she asked.
I had no answer. Does anyone really?
We continued walking, discussing her treatment options. I searched for words to give her comfort and hope, and she confessed her doubts about our Christian upbringing and if she needed to believe in Jesus anymore.
I said a silent prayer.
Finally, our walk took us back to our shoes we had left neatly side-by-side and were surprised by a big heart etched in the sand next to them. Inside the heart was written: John 3:16. We looked at each smiling as if we expected the other to fess up that they had done it, but that didn’t make any sense; we’d been with each other the whole time. We contemplated if someone could have heard our conversations and then made the heart with the bible verse in it while we were gone. Our husbands? A passerby? No. We were the only ones on the beach that early morning except for a few runners. But even if it had happened like that, it didn’t explain why there were no footprints in the sand. Had the heart been there when we left our shoes? No. We were both clear that we would have noticed it.
“Do you remember what John 3:16 says?” I asked my sister.
“I do. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.’”
Neither of us knew what to say. That distinct message in the sand was an answer to her question and an answer to my prayer.
We returned to her house and our waiting husbands and told them what had happened. After their doubtful and joking comments, my sister and I let the subject drop. We didn’t want to hear anything negative; we needed to ponder more on the message given to us.
Though there were no human footprints in the sand that day, my sister and I both knew someone in the spiritual realm had been there.
My sister accepted this mysterious and spiritual “message in the heart” that day and renewed her acceptance of Jesus. As she traveled the remainder of her destiny here on earth, she took comfort that whoever left her that message would be with her to guide her into her next reality. I have no doubt that’s what happened. Christine passed not too long after this.
And I have no doubt that when it’s my turn I will see Christine again.
