Sister

For the first time in my life, I forgot my sister’s birthday. It’s not like I really forgot it though, because the first part of the week I thought of what to send her and that I needed to get it in the mail. Then I had a sinus infection and got caught up in all things physical and when I came up for air – well, it was the day after her birthday.

I called her immediately and said how terrible I felt about letting it slip by. She said she had thought about calling me (she knew what had happened) but didn’t want to make me feel bad. Well, I feel bad anyway. She’s not as deep into sentimentality as I, so she really didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m glad for that.

I remember rocking her to sleep when she was a chubby baby. She had tangles of natural curly blond hair and her cheeks were always rosey. Clear mountain-stream blue eyes and a grin from ear to ear. She was always happy. I’d rock her to sleep for her nap and she always laid across my belly with her face toward the floor and my arms around her. She’d fall asleep that way and it was an easy thing to slide her down into her bed – back in the days when babies were still allowed to sleep on their stomachs. I sang to her as I rocked and made up endless additional verses to rock-a-bye baby…all of which I still remember.

She is ten years younger than I and was pretty much affixed to my hip for her first five years. She’d be thrilled that I tell you about the first time she pooped herself while in my care. Mother had gone to the drugstore and was barely out the door when it happened. It was more horrible than anything I had ever experienced and the smell drove me right out of the room. She lay there in her playpen happy as could be, arms and legs flailing as she rolled around in it – her own homemade mud. I watched from an adjoining room, horrified that something so horrible could have come from someone so cute.

There was the time my best friend Dana and I took her to the park with us. I took my sister from her stroller and put her on a blanket in the grass with some of her toys and Dana and I plopped down in the grass beside her. We became engrossed in our conversation and when I looked up she was nowhere to be seen. My instant panic soon dissolved as I found her cooing and kicking at the bottom of the ditch alongside which I had placed her blanket. Thank God it hadn’t rained lately.

It wasn’t unusual for her to go along on a date with me. One memorable time was to the drive-in movie. I can’t really remember the circumstances of why that came to be, but I clearly remember that she had all the popcorn, candy and soda she wanted. Anything to keep her quiet…and occupied.

She walked into the house one summer day while I was babysitting her to find my boyfriend and I engaged in an awkward teenage kiss. In the most shrill voice I’ve ever heard she yelled out “I’m telling Mama you were kissing him goodnight”. That never happened, as I was quite adept at her form of bribery.

Through it all I loved her. I wasn’t around much during her childhood, as I left home early and didn’t return too often in those days. She loved me though, almost more like a worship. I’d return home for a visit and she’d meet me at the door begging me to do a cheer like I did in high school. In her eyes, I was the same.

I married and lived far away in Ohio. She came to visit and we taught her to drive in an old Volkswagen Bug in a corn field. She rolled her hair on orange juice cans and was actually fearful of mushrooms. I chased her around Whites Landing one summer evening wagging a mushroom in the air to the tune of her screaming. The child could be strange.

I had surgery and she came to stay to help care for the boys. During my recuperation we went to the beach. My stomach was tender from the surgery, so we dug a hole in the sand so that I could lie on my stomach without pain – the hole being just the right size to hold my stomach. As I recall, that was her idea. That day my youngest son went poop in his bathing suit and the flies were swarming around his butt. People were beginning to give us funny looks as he shared the aroma with all while running all over the beach hotly pursued by a flock of flies. Lying there with my stomach in the hole, I couldn’t get up, so she had to take him to the beach house and clean him up. I vividly remember lying there, my entire body shaking with laughter as I wanted her take his hand and lead him away – flies in tow. She still doesn’t think that story’s very funny.

Somewhere around her 19th birthday, she came to live with us. I was divorced by this time and the boys were about two and four. We rented a big two-story house and we made a home – for us and for the boys. We had lots of adventures in that house and we had our share of spats. It was a special time and it embedded her essence into my sons in a very special way. She loved them and she helped to care for and nurture them. I have always loved her even more for that.

I met George, we eventually married – she was my Maid of Honor – and we all moved to Birmingham. Shortly thereafter she met her someone and so began her journey with him of now almost 28 years. Her daughters are in college and she has since become a nurse.

It was very difficult to capsulize my sister and our relationship this way. I could write a book about our shared experiences. She’s been a huge part of my life – always. I don’t know how I could have forgotten her birthday.

I love you sister.