My Sister, My Friend

I have written here before about my sister. She is five years younger than I am. I don't really remember clearly when she was born. I remember a time before she was there. I remember when she started being old enough to play with but not so much about her being a baby.

From the beginning, I was very protective of my sister. She shows up in my dreams more often than anyone else. Some of the earliest dreams I remember are of trying to help her find and go to the bathroom only to wake up and have to run for the bathroom myself. As I got a little older, if I had nightmare it usually involved someone chasing me and my sister and trying to help her run faster and to protect her.

I suppose partly because she is my only sibling, we have always been close but I think it is also because we are enough different and enough alike to be friends. I think too because I am the oldest and she is the youngest, our relationship has worked well. People were always surprised to hear that she was both the messy one and the stubborn one. I was obsessively neat and her room always looked like a bomb had hit it. Also, I am very stubborn myself and my sister tends to be more compliant but I learned very soon that if she decided to "lay her ears back and dig in her heels" about something, I may as well give in because there was no changing her mind.

She is also the smart and gifted one which has been a source of joy to me and never anything to be envious about at all. Her sixth grade teacher came to my parents after testing one year and told them what her IQ was. It was high evidently because my mother still shakes her head in amazement when she talks about it. Except for the trumpet, my sister has never picked up an instrument that she couldn't play after some practice. It has been a delight over the years to hear her play the piano, the violin, the flute, the guitar, the clarinet and she has a lovely singing voice too.

I don't want to give the impression that we never had our moments. From ages 10 to 13, I didn't want a little sister always hanging around me and my friends. We didn't really fight though. As our mother would say, "You were not ALLOWED to fight." We did have our little spats and we still occasionally drive each other a little nuts but mostly, we have had a very harmonious relationship.

We had seven wonderful years of living together when we were in our twenties. Now we are both wives and she is a mother. Thanks to instant messaging and the telephone, we talk often and still love each other very much. This weekend she and her family will be here for a visit. On July 20, she will celebrate her birthday and I will celebrate having her as my sister.