Response to "Red Sky in the Morning"

Hampl is inspired by an encounter with a complete stranger to reflect and try to understand the importance and meaning of memoirs and the value of words. She realizes how much more life has to say, but the people who have stories and experiences to tell are limited with the vocabulary understood.
I have never been presented with a short amount of words or phrases that captured and lead my mind to inquire as deeply as Hampl did, but I might have come close.
I was pilfering through my older sister's doors when I noticed a long hand written letter wrinkled under a stack of magazines. I began to read and as I finished tears began to fill my eyes. The note, it was a birthday card from Audrie's 18th Birthday left from my mom a few months ago. First of all my mom doesn't write long lengthy letters, especially on birthdays, at my house "it is ALWAYS your birthday," that caught me off guard. Secondly, the note addressed how much my mom appreciated the fact that Audrie, the sister that claims to not want anything to do with her four younger siblings, is huge role model and how proud my mom is to call my sister her daughter and the best influence on her younger children. Maybe to some families this isn't that meaningful of an event but in my house, where we never tell each other how much we love them and how important they are to us, because we all have five thousand other things going on, I have never felt connected with my sister especially through a note that was neither written or addressed to me. I began to realize how much I do admire Audrie, how I always seem to be immulating her actions, but never on purpose. As much as we downsize our relationship in reality I value it more than most things in life, and maybe it took words coming from my mom to acknowledge it.