Beautiful Michele-
You had a special place in my life and heart. Our relationship became very strong when I was around nine years old. You taught me how to drive! We were hanging out at your house and you had your Volkswagen bug and thought it would be cool to go for a ride; however, you were going to teach ME how to drive (again, I was nine, but if anyone knew who my dad was, this was a par for the course in my learning experience of all things early on). I learned how to drive a manual car at 9 years old, thanks to you, Michele - we had a blast! You were so fun and funny!! At another time we took your mom's, Aunt Carol's, big sedan out and Jamie was with us. Aunt Carol had a bunch of real estate "stuff" in the back seat where Jamie was sitting. I rounded a corner and Jamie landed on some glass jar that shattered (meh, apparently no seatbelts back then - oops). Oh, boy, you and I had to keep Jamie quiet while coming up with some excuse of broken glass in the back seat. LOL.
When I was older, my most fondest memories of you, Michele, were: every single one of Billy Joel's songs and your imitation of Rosannadanna - my best memories. You used to play and sing VERY loud every Billy Joel song (you had a good voice). You used to imitate Rosanadanna by Gilda Radner from Saturday Night Live, and it was spot on! It was laugh-out-loud-hard funny every time! LOL
When we were younger, and we lived on Dahl Drive, you used to babysit us and some of my biggest memories were of you taking us to K-Mart (and most of the time you did not wear shoes - I never did understand that fetish), but the biggest memory was you scaring the shit out of us with the Boogey Man and you shutting me, Jamie, and yourself in the bathroom (I think you scared the crap out of yourself). It was during the day, but we were sitting on the floor in the dark bathroom! We finally were so scared we bolted out of the door and ran to Noni's house. You, Michele, were barefoot, as usual. When we got to Noni's, you had the crap slapped out of your feet! Noni could not stress enough that NOBODY should ever be barefoot in her house. (Jamie used to get in trouble all of the time for that as well). So much for the Boogey Man - Noni's wrath was way worse than any Boogey Man or whatever we were running from!! LOL.
I love you, Michele, and wish we had a closer relationship when we were older. But I cherish all of the special times we shared for all of those early years. I hope and pray you are at peace. You may not have intended to go, but maybe you are where you need to be. Rest easy.
Love you always, Deena