I decided to delete a few old emails last night. I grouped the emails into who they were from, pulled down the scroll bar to look for a chunk of something to delete, and out of all of the tens of thousands of old emails I have (I really let them pile up), I landed on emails from my late sister Kim. I didn't even remember that there were any from her in there. They were only from about the last year of her life, and there weren't that many.
I started to copy and paste them into Word, since I feel we have so little left of her, not enough to hang on to. Like I've said before, I feel I didn't pay enough attention to my two sisters (both younger than I) when they were little, and because of fatigue and health problems on my end, didn't stay in touch often enough even later.
Kim was living elsewhere a lot (Madison and Portland) and I didn't like to talk on the phone (wears me out), and Kim didn't like to write much (or didn't have time), so we just didn't have much contact. Even after she moved back here, I didn't see her much.
I was surprised to see in the few emails I've moved so far, that much of it was me saying that we (my husband and I) couldn't attend various things, either because of fatigue, money, or because the gathering was too large for us (like, more than 5 people).
I guess we just think we have all the time in the world, to be with people. Even with the older relatives who used to be in this house with my husband and me, people who we spent a whole lot of time with, for many years, I still feel it's not enough now that they are gone. I was just saying this to Dean the other day. You always wish for more time, when people you love are gone.
Sure, we've had health difficulties and problems and excuses, but we should've made more time, somehow. We shouldn't have let so many things stop us. It's not good to have these regrets.