Jaci Dawn

I got side-tracked with tonight’s blog post. I wanted to capture the windstorm, but since my camera doesn’t have a video option, that was a pretty wasted idea. I did take a whole series of photos and tried to clip them together to make a movie, but – well, I really need to read the manual to my camera. (Who reads manuals?)

The wind storm wasn’t all that spectacular, anyway, and we live on the lee side, so storms usually blow right over us and we don’t even know they were there until the morning after and the streets are littered with downed limbs and trees.

So that put me in a pickle for my 250th photo of the day.

Then I spied Diamond.

And I promptly forgot to reset my camera, so I didn’t have the flash on.

Diamond is one half of a set. The other half was a kitten that was sitting up and looking coy.

My sister and I were caught up in a struggle for attention and favoritism. If I got to choose first, she was upset and angry. If she got to choose first, I was upset and angry. For instance, when it came time to play an instrument for school band, I really, really, really wanted to play the flute. All my friends (Trudi and Carolyn, to be specific) played the flute. But it wasn’t my turn to pick first. My folks could only purchase one musical instrument and that one was chosen by my sister. She chose clarinet.

She played it for six months and dropped out. I played it for four years before giving up and admitting I had no real talent. But that wasn’t the point: the point was, she got to choose first.

Diamond and her counterpart were a gift from our grandparents Melrose. And it happened that it was my turn to choose first. I chose Diamond. Deni got the other kitten, which was, to my mind, just as cute with little rhinestone eyes.

Deni was not of the same mind and she promptly found a way to break Diamond. I don’t remember the details, only the sisterly spite and the distress I felt when Diamond was broken into bits.

My mother, ever the diplomat, carefully glued Diamond back together and cautioned me against going after my sister in an eternal war of revenge. Let it go, see I fixed the kitty almost as good as new.

I dropped Diamond myself at some point in time, and the glue came out again. The break lines just added character, my mother said.

I do not know what become of my sister’s kitten. Between the lifestyle she lived and the disposition of her belongings by her widower after she died, much of what belonged to her was lost. I’m pretty certain she still had Diamond’s counterpart (intact, I might add) when she died. I hope she did.

I still have Diamond and she still has her original rhinestone eyes.

And what beautiful, laughing eyes they are. Diamond seems to smile beneath the cracks of her porcelain finish, an eternally amused kitten.

A reminder of the sister I loved and warred with. And of a mother with the wisdom to patch things together imperfectly.

Aren’t memories grand?