Where it stands, a year later

Please enjoy this pic of my sister from about 6 years ago...

 Back then she was so thin.  You could cut yourself on that chin, for real.  Always very stylish and well dressed, hair and makeup, the whole nine yards.  It's something I always admired about her.  She was very feminine and put together, on the outside if not the inside.

I figured it would be a while before I saw my sister again - heck, I thought it would be at someone's funeral.  I figured she would at least acknowledge me the next time I saw her.  I was at her house recently to pick up my mother and got there a few minutes early.  My mother answered the door, not my sister.  My mother said "Have you seen Melissa's new house?" and showed me in.  My sister stood with her back to me, making a sandwich in the kitchen.  {I'm guessing she was trying to get that done before I appeared.}  She answered one or two questions from my mother without turning around to face us, then gathered up her plate, said she had to get back to her desk, and beat a hasty retreat without so much as look at me.  But here is what I was struck by:  I wasn't even 100% sure it was her, at first.  She was thin, but not painfully so.  Her hair was very short, very thin, and white.  Had I seen her in public, I'm not sure I would have recognized her.  Aside from that, I got the very real feeling that she is done with me forever.  She couldn't put on her game face and say hello, even in front of her mother.  It felt strange to me, maybe because for all of these years, she's done just that - pretended like she and I were close, when that was never really the truth, at least for her.  So, at that moment she felt like just another person to me, and I was ok with it.  And, I guess this is where I will leave it - for now.