Happy Heavenly Birthday to My Wild Irish Twin

"Missing" her can't even come close to how I feel.

Dede and I, Camp Casey, August 2005

On June 16th 1958, exactly 24-days before my first birthday, my parents Dennis and Shirley Miller brought a squalling, red-faced brat named Christy Anne into my life. Despite the inevitable sibling-rivalry between two sisters, so close in age, by the time she passed (from the side-effects of breast cancer treatment0 on 21 January 2017, she had grown over the decades into my closest confidant, friend, peace-colleague, and comrade in the deepest sense of the word.

I have written much about My Wild Irish Twin (two siblings born within a year of each other). Dede (her family nickname, since I was obviously too young to say “Christy”) was beside me every step of the way fighting the war machine after her nephew Casey was killed in Iraq on 04/04/04. There would have been absolutely zero chance I would have survived Camp Casey in August of 2005 and the intensity afterwards without her unwavering support. I know, without her love and support of our family, none of us would have come through Casey’s murder as well as we have.

I miss her every day and I would like to acknowledge that I could have used her presence during the first Trump regime, Covid, and other family struggles, but I know that not even death could separate me from my Wild Irish Twin. We may not have ever shared a womb, but there is no time in my memory, or her life, that we had ever been apart.

Dede was an extraordinary person and grew so perfectly into her role as activist and organizer.

On her death bed when she told me that she was afraid to die, through my sobs, I told that if she wanted, she could rest, because not many people are as blessed as she was in her loving, and dedicated efforts to make the world a better place.

And the world was blessed because she lived here, even for so brief a time.

Dede and I on her final Christmas. Wearing the blankets my daughter had made for us…