It is my privilege to speak today in memory of my sister,
April Leigh. April was my very best friend as well as being my little sister, a
truth that I never took for granted. And today I get to tell you what made her
the very best sister anyone could ever ask for.
My
sister was a surprise, born only 14 months after me. She brought into our lives
so much joy that continued for 46 years. When we were little April was a ball
of energy, always charging ahead of me, always so very excited about whatever
we were doing. I was the straight man to her much more fun personality.
We
always just naturally did everything together, a built in best friend at times,
and of course at times mortal enemies. We joke in our family about photos of us
with my cousin Amy at this tiny (I guess it was a park with some attractions?)
where we always squished together into one seat while Amy leisurely sits alone.
We didn’t understand that we could sit apart from one another.
She was
my constant defender. If our parents ever yelled at me, she emerged from
wherever she was and defended my every motive and move.
As we
grew older, April spread her wings much larger than I ever did. She joined the
band, which she loved, and she was named one of the field commanders her senior
year, which was such fun for her as she was paired with one of her very dearest
friends, Jennie Wisneiwski. April loved AWANA, which she participated in at
Calvary Baptist Church in Byesville, and she loved going to church camp, first
as a camper and later working at the camp in Scioto Hills. She worked a lot of
jobs, including Wendy’s, Blockbuster, and the Muskingum Behavioral Health
Center.
She
graduated from John Glenn in 1998 and began her college career at Cedarville
University that fall. She started out majoring in nursing, but she quickly fell
in love with psychology and changed her major the second half of her freshman
year. She worked hard and graduated with highest honors in three years, in
2001. She loved Cedarville and especially her roommate Misty Smith, who had
been a friend since high school. After graduation, she married Jeremy on
November 24, 2001, with her friends Misty, Sara Werner, and Philina Wentworth
as her bridesmaids and me as her maid of honor, and moved to Newport News, Virginia, where Jeremy
was stationed in the Navy and she began her work to obtain her PhD in
psychology at Regent University.
Mallory
came along on February 2, 2005, as much of a surprise as April had been. She
always told me that her song for Mallory was “God Blessed the Broken Road,”
because she was so focused on school and along came this baby that shifted
everything. She completed her internship for her PhD at Emerge in Akron in 2005
and 2006, which was wonderful for me because I got to keep Mallory while she
drove to Akron and back from Mom and Dad’s house.
Once
she graduated in 2006 she joined the faculty at Regent and also began seeing
therapy patients at Genesis. At that point they moved to Virginia Beach. On
March 11, 2011 Natalie was born and completed their family. And in 2013 they
moved to Kent, which was the best for us because it meant that we could get to
them in 2 hours instead of the 9 that it took to get to Virginia. She continued
to teach for Regent online and began counseling at Emerge, where she had done
her internship. Eventually she began teaching at Stark State, which was her favorite of all of her jobs, and once
her student loans were paid off, she stopped counseling to concentrate on
teaching full-time.
My
sister loved teaching and it has warmed my heart to see the messages that have
been left by her students about what special teacher she was. She answered
every email, every question, she poured herself into her classes and loved
every minute of teaching.
She
also loved, in no particular order, Little Debbie Oatmeal Crème pies, cheese of
any kind, musicals, sports of all kinds, most especially tennis (her most
favorite player of all time being Rafa Nadal) and the Ohio State Buckeyes, travelling,
escape rooms and games, history (her favorite historical figures being
Alexander Hamilton and John Quincy Adams- she loved Hamilton long before the
musical. When I heard about the musical I called her and I said, “You’ll never
believe, they made a musical about Alexander Hamilton, it’s two of your
favorite things!”) She was incredibly funny, and my girls and I loved her sense
of humor. She was the world’s best listener; she always began every
conversation with “what is going on with you?” And she ended every phone call
to me with, “I love you, Joy.”
She
loved to read- we both do, and we would read a lot of things together so that
we could talk about them. But she loved with all of her heart mysteries,
series, and books about World War II. If we found an author that she loved, she
read every single one of their books all at one time. I never understood how
she kept the stories straight, reading them that way, but she wanted to gulp
them all down as quickly as possible.
She
loved to plan trips and she wanted us to see everything we could squeeze in and
as many unique places as she could find. We have been so many places it would
take me hours to list them all out. But that was the thing that made her the
happiest, planning the trips. She always told me that she truly enjoyed
planning the trips almost more than going.
She
told me on one of our final phone calls that she and I only had about 30 more
years of travel ahead of us and she knew everywhere that she wanted to go. I’m
sure someday we will stumble upon her plans for all of that- she and I were
going to be little old ladies traveling the world with Betsy to drive us.
My
sister and I talked about everything and so we had many long discussions about
the importance of grief. She did a good bit of teaching in the area of the
psychology of aging and longevity, and we both agreed that grief is such an
important part of life, as hard as it is to grieve. I know that she is watching
me and encouraging me as I go through this maddening time, pushing me to push
through all of the pain of missing her to find the ultimate gift that grief can
bring to your life.
Years
ago, my sister and I watched the movie Bride Wars. I watched it in the theater
and told her that I enjoyed it, and so she watched it. And in that movie these
two girls who have been best friends forever are planning their weddings and
they start fighting with each other, and I can’t remember why but Kate Hudson’s
character does get married and Anne Hathaway’s does not. But at the end Anne
says in a voiceover, “Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can
never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand
by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with
your dream wedding. But there's also the chance that the one person you can
count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you
know yourself is the same person who's been standing beside you all along.” And
my sister, who did not cry hardly ever, said with tears in her eyes that that
was us. That we were each other’s soulmates. And for as long as I live that
will be the truth. I am the luckiest girl in the world that April Leigh Watson
Cunion was my person.
Also,
while I have the opportunity to speak to everyone, I would like to say thank
you for all of my family for the love and support we have received in the past
several weeks. Everyone who has brought us food, everyone who sent a card or
flowers or gifts, everyone who has kept us in their prayers- we are truly
overwhelmed by the love shown to us. We thank you and ask that you would
continue to hold us in your prayers.
