I have been contemplating how to even form the words for this as it is incredibly painful.
On December 7th at 6:46 AM CST I received a text from my beloved cousin, Cindy. It was basically a goodbye text, she had been very sick for a long time. When I first glanced at the text, as I was driving to work, it read like she was already gone. I immediately started sobbing, I don’t even know how I made it to work, the hand of God was really there in that moment. As soon as I got there and threw my car into park I opened the message to read the whole thing, she was not gone yet, but it was definitely a goodbye text.
On my lunch I called her son, Justin, to ask what was going on. His mom was in the hospital and not doing well, it was her lungs. She had been having issues for years with her lungs.
I told him I would be up on Saturday to see her at the hospital and then told him to tell her she was my favorite cousin. He said his aunt Paula (Cindy’s only sister) was in the room with her, did I want him to take the phone in the room with him and put it on speaker phone so I could tell both at once. I said yes I do! Levity in the time of seriousness is a gift and I will die on that hill. So he took the phone in and I said Cindy is my favorite and Paula said that’s ok because I (Paula) was grandma’s favorite. Then we all laughed.
I went up on Saturday December 9th, to Oklahoma City, where Cindy was in ICU.
I got to hug her, hold her hand and tell her how much she had meant to me, as my cousin. I got to hug Paula, we call it the Testerman hug. Where you hug tight and give a squeeze. I also got to hug her brother Larry and his daughter Carrie and her daughter Kaylie. Hugging is good for the soul, especially the way we all hug.
I left after several hours and went home, I tried not to cry on the way home as I was not sure my car knew the way from OKC back to Garland, TX.
The next morning I went to my youngest son and his wife’s house to give the twins their birthday presents from Gigi. It was December 10th, my phone vibrated and it was a number I didn’t immediately know, it was Cindy’s daughter-in-law. Cindy went home that morning, she went home to be with our Lord and Savior and all of the ones that went before her. Her mom and dad, our grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, I know without a doubt there was much rejoicing that day.
But for those of us left here, we grieve, hard, she was nothing short of amazing.
I am going to tell you a story that will show you the type of person my cousin Cindy was.
She and her husband moved to Owasso in 1985, that is where she and I reconnected after being apart for many years. A story for a different time.
At that time I was hugely pregnant with Jeffrey, I had told my husband, at the time, that I could not bring Jeffrey into the same house Michael had been in.
So we bought a new house, that had not been built yet, and this part is fuzzy, I don’t remember if we rented out the current house or sold it with us holding the note. Anyway, the people moved in before our house was finished and we had nowhere to live.
Jeff arranged for us to live with his business partner at the time and his wife until the house was finished. These were very literally the worst humans and I will stand by that to this day. I will not name names because they still live in Owasso.
Anyway, every day the wife insisted no one could be in the house without them being there. I was hugely pregnant and not working at the time so that meant I had to find somewhere else to be every day.
So, I went to Cindy and her husband Mark’s house every day starting at 8am. I would complain nonstop about these people and how awful they were. The entire time, I know she wanted to take her shoe off and hit me, but she didn’t.
On the fifth day when I got there at 8 she said before you sit down, Mark and I talked it over and we want you and Jeff to come stay with us until your house if finished. I said are you sure? Because I will be bringing a newborn here, she pointed to Amber and Justin (her children) and said yeah I’m used to kids.
I very quickly started waddling towards the door and she said where are going? I said are you kidding I’m going to get my stuff before you change your mind.
I got there right before the wife was leaving for work and told her she would have to wait we were moving out and I was getting our stuff.
She just stared in a dumbfounded way, then after Jeff got off work I met him at the other house and told him don’t even get out of your car, we are now living at Mark and Cindy’s.
I had the best time there, we talked, she cooked (she was an amazing cook, I was not about to get in her way) and laughed.
As long as I have lived, I never had one fight with Cindy, not even a cousin fight. If we ever disagreed with one another then we would agree to disagree and remained cousins, until the end.
I miss her every day, I miss talking to her for 4 hours at a time on the phone. Yes you read that right, our calls would last that long, without any lags in the conversation.
She loved fiercely, her children, grandchildren, brothers, her only sister, Paula, her nieces and nephews and all of her cousins.
Her legacy is one of love, acceptance and toughness when it was needed.
I know I will see her again one day, but it does not lessen the pain of today.
Angie World 