This is dedicated...

    If you've read Feels Like the First Time, you might remember that it was dedicated to my sister Terri.  Today would have been her 70th birthday.  I like to think about what we would have done to celebrate this milestone with her.   Dawn and I would have picked her up in the morning and taken her to lunch at H.D. Hotspurs and gone to see a movie, because that's what she loved to do. Instead, she's been gone for almost four years now and I am just missing her.
     When I wrote the first half dozen drafts of the book, the story was framed by emails between Terri and I.  Several beta readers questioned the tone of those emails, saying they didn't feel "real," and that brothers and sisters generally didn't talk that lovingly to each other. The truth is, we did.  
     Have you had someone in your life who is your greatest promoter or defender?  Someone who is in front of you protecting you, or standing behind you pushing you, depending on the situation? I am lucky that I do with Dawn Adele, but for many years before we found each other again, I had Terri.
     When I was nine years old, I wanted to fly in an airplane more than anything, so she arranged for me to fly on a little commuter jet to where she was doing a consulting job.  While I spent a few days with her on the road, she started teaching me things she thought I would need to know to be a good man, like opening doors for her, pulling out her chair, and even how to tip a Maitre D' to get a good table.
     She was a busy executive, smashing through the glass ceiling that existed for women in business in the 60s and 70s, but she wasn't as tough as she liked to portray herself. For many years, her business cards read "Terri Lucero, Barracuda Bitch" but I knew the person she really was.
     For a little more than a decade, she owned Jayhawks Department Store in Enumclaw and Yelm Washington. During those years, I saw her make decision after decision that benefited others, but not herself. I remember a Hardware Department Head whose father passed away in the Midwest. He had been with the store for less than a month, so didn't think he would get the time off to go to his father's funeral.  Terri not only gave him the time off, she bought him the round trip plane ticket because he didn't have any money.
     Jayhawks closed in 1998, and I thought that would be the end of Terri.  So much of her identity was tied up in that store that when it didn't exist any more, she felt like she didn't either. She dug the deepest hole I've ever seen, then climbed in and pulled the hole in after her. She stayed there for quite awhile.
     Eventually, she poked her head out again and told me she wanted to start doing something with her life. I had been selling music and movies on Amazon for a few years, so I trained her in how to do that.  Her natural retailer's instincts kicked in and she soon had another successful business up and running.
     By 2008, she was pretty much back to her old self, and I felt so lucky to have my sister and best friend back again. We talked on the phone every day, and emailed each other at least that often. She took to signing off her emails with "Beep Beep" because she felt like the Roadrunner again, happily moving through life. She was wealthy for much of her life, but at the end she wasn't. Still, she was happier and more relaxed in that last year of her life than I could ever remember.
     In December 2008, she called and asked me to promise her that I would publish Feels Like the First Time. I promised her, then promptly forgot about it.  Two weeks later, she died. I published the book to fulfill that promise to her, and that's why it is dedicated to her. 
     While she was alive, she was my mentor, best friend, advisor, sister and constant source of support. There are many days I would give anything to just sit down and have one last conversation with her, to let her know how wonderfully everything has turned out in my life. 
     I used to dream of her regularly after she died. About six months ago, I dreamed we were at an airport. She was late for a flight and we were running to her gate. As we got closer, she started to move ahead of me. She said "I've got to go on ahead. You catch up when you can." She disappeared around a corner and was gone. I don't think I'll dream about her again, but I miss her every day.