My Sister...

My sister, Dawn who is two years older wrote an e-mail today stating that she was ready for another blog entry. She evidently likes my writing, which is a good thing, and of course I wanted to indulge her. What? Garsh Darn-it, here we are just on the precipice of mid-life and she is STILL telling me what to do! And the worst part is I STILL do what she says! So here I am writing a blog entry because my sister said so…as a result it got me thinking about all the things I had to do as a youngster because ‘my sister said so’.

Oh boy, there were so many instances; you see she took it upon herself to be MY boss! She would probably claim she was being a ‘caretaker’ …same thing; just a euphemism, but being the youngest of five, EVERYONE seemed to be my boss! Further I felt I could never escape it or her…but don’t worry, she’d tell you the same thing herself so I’m not revealing any deep dark secret here. I have committed to memory the occasion I was in third or fourth grade and I had ‘on purpose’ forgotten my school book since I hadn’t done my homework. Therefore while we were standing in the kitchen and the bus was blaring its horn she yelled at me to go get my math book with the incomplete work tucked inside. I emphatically said ‘NO!’ so she pushed me toward my curtailed job and I hit my forehead on the corner of the table and needed stitches…the good part? I didn’t have to go to school without my unfinished homework!

Another time we were amusing ourselves with our baby dolls on the back patio and I wanted to rock mine to sleep and being the baby sister, Dawnie’s child sized rocking chair was there for the taking. I sat down and started swaying and singing to my baby, and she told me to ‘Get Up!’ Well, my baby wasn’t quite asleep yet, so I stayed put and kept on serenading my young one. Well, I could tell in the tone of my sister’s voice she wasn’t going to say, ‘oh gosh then, I’ll just wait until you are done…’ No, that wasn’t in her so she demanded again with her hands on her hips and her brow furrowed as her lips pursed together puckered out, shouting, ‘GET UP!’ and I repeatedly told her I wanted to sing my baby to sleep. To this day I have no idea what bravery crawled into me, but I remember picking up that rocking chair and dashing around the back yard as fast as my little legs could carry me rushing from her as she was shaking her fist at me. Unfortunately, I was running with the furniture and my baby doll so I was definitely at a disadvantage therefore I made a cut to the right and when I couldn’t escape her wrath, I put the chair down and bounded over it; or at least I attempted to leap over it and landed on my arm. Of course, I cried and blamed her because it was ALWAYS her fault (I’m no dummy!) and spent the next six months in a cast up to my shoulder. (Picture below to prove it!)

Seriously, a sliver of examples, BUT a true depiction of our growing up, I love my sister, and what’s more I admire her. She has an incredible heart of kindness and would give the shirt off her back for those less fortunate. She has adopted four children as a single parent and continues to give when she has nothing left to offer. I want to shake her at times because she sticks her neck out repeatedly and then gets hurt so deeply and I end up aching for her, although she keeps plugging away when I would have thrown in the towel a long time ago.

My sister is a teacher who is extremely smart in the area of life, knows what she likes and doesn’t like and says what is on her mind. She doesn’t let people get the best of her, well, most of the time and her unbelievable strength carries her through distressed times only to do it all over again. So yeah, I continue to be the little sister whose big sister still can tell her what to do, but whom else would I have to tell me what to do? Never mind, don’t answer that! ...the line starts here!