Donna Rae

Remembering all the soldiers who have served in the Armed Forces. Thank you for your sacrifices. As a young boy I remember my Mother visiting the gravesite of her Mother and Father every Memorial Day. She never missed a year when she was living near enough to make the trip. So today I wanted to take a moment to remember all my family and friends who are no longer with us:

Eva Gardner
Don Gardner
Art Gardner
Vondell Gardner
James Coulson
Florence Coulson
Clinton Coulson
Matt Gardner
Lisa Gardner
Toby Snow
Joni Snow
Lola Arthur
Niema Deines
James Hartman
Jerry Joki

And my older sister I never knew:

DONNA RAE


I never got to meet my older sister Donna Rae. She died of pneumonia when she was 2 months old. I was thinking about all the memories we might have made had she lived to be an adult. So I wrote a little poem about it.

Together Mom and Dad gave birth
To children numbering six.
Seems... I was second from the last
In our Gardner family mix.

After me came sister Beth,
The baby of the lot.
The oldest being brother Jim,
First son my Father got.

After Jim came Carole Kay,
My second oldest kin.
Then out in Colorado came
The sister we call Lynn.

So that makes five I listed here
The kids of Eva Mae;
But there’s one more I never knew…
Her name was Donna Rae.

Her birthday came in February
Of nineteen fifty-four.
But two months after life began…
Poor Donna was no more.

I never got to see her face,
Or feel her baby skin.
But I know Mom has got the chance…
To see her once again.

I wonder how it might have been
If she still lived today.
And all the memories we’d have made…
With our sister Donna Rae.

But history cannot now be changed
There is no past review.
So dreams are all I’ll ever have…
Of the Sis I Never Knew.

Donna Rae Gardner 1954-1954