I'm feeling inspired to write about my sister today.
Like my father before me, I have, in total, 7 brothers and sisters. Unlike my dad, I grew up an only child. That's because I share some siblings with my mom, some with my dad, and our ages span almost 2 decades--but that's a whole other story for a whole other day. Please don't hold any of this against us. Our parents just weren't very lucky about finding the right spouci until after most of us were already here. So while I don't have any photos that include all my brothers and sisters like my dad does, I'm happy to report today that all of our parents are quite content to have found terrific life partners.
But today I'm writing about Kelly. She was born around Thanksgiving time in 1977 when I was 5 years old. She has always lived hundreds of miles away (my dad was an Air Force Officer), and so I mostly just got to see her in the summertime. I loved absolutely everything about having a baby sister--I didn't even mind the poopy diapers. Kelly was the first person to ever give me the title I could proudly wear, "sister."
During the summers, I took Kelly along on walks to the Base Exchange (BX for short...it was like Wal-Mart for military families) or on bike rides to the base pool. I taught her how to build tent houses out of blankets and chairs and such, and prepare fantastic picnics to eat inside them. We played with make-up and dress-up. I got my first babysitting experiences taking care of Kelly. I pulled her first tooth for her (in a department store of all places--dad was pretty irritated about that, actually.) When she lost the lost tooth, I taught her how to write a letter to the tooth fairy in lieu of producing the actual tooth. In fact, I coached the toothfairy on how much money to pay for the first tooth. I truly adored Kelly...or at least the idea of Kelly.
As the summers wore on each year, the love affairs eventually ended too. Kelly became a pain in the rear. She would take food to bed and crunch it at night. Loudly. She tattled on me for sweeping dirt under a rug. She whined to get whatever she wanted. My dad was one of those who would do pretty much anything to get the whining to stop. She once ate all the creme out of every one of the Oreos and left only the empty brown cookies stuck together in the Tupperware box. She was also the one who drank half of all the Pepsi bottles with such frequency that the parental unit would require Kelly AND Karen to drink her half-eaten sodas instead of getting a whole new beverage. (Eew!)
Years later, Kelly admitted that she enjoyed doing all those kinds of things to upset me--the greatest prize happened when she could get me to cry in fits of frustration. As much as I loved the idea of having a little sister, Kelly loved the idea of having a big sister (or so my dad used to tell me--I've never actually validated that with Kelly, nor could I have believed it to be true at the time.) But now I know that in practice, it's much harder to give up one's "only child" status for a summer than either of us was capable of anticipating. We were both pretty happy getting all of the attention in our respective primary households throughout the academic year, and it would be years before either of us was very good at sharing anything.
Today, Kelly is happily married to her high school sweetheart, Corey, and they have a beautiful daughter named Annabella--"Bella" for short. Kelly is now a United States Naval Officer and also a medical doctor in North Carolina, where she is currently completing her residency. When I get emails from Kelly, I still feel the way I did when I got her birth announcement when I was 5 years old--the same way I felt each June growing up...before the summer honeymoons ended. I have this overwhelming (even somewhat romantic) rush of pride, "That's my baby sister." She shares her life, asks great questions, and listens patiently to all my worldly advice. She's learned not to reject it. She simply listens, says thank-you, and does not tell when my advice is not helpful. If she knows that I have short-comings too, she never says anything about it. If she has advice for me, she knows better than to share it (with the exception, of course, of medical knowledge...which I am only too happy to accept :-) If she complains about it to anyone else, I haven't ever heard about it.
I'm finally realizing that 5 year old romantic notion of "big sister." The thing I enjoy most about Kelly is the opportunity to watch her learnings as they unfold, and to absolutely know with all of my heart that she will be hugely successful in the future. I listen intently to all of her diatribes about life's trials. Its not so much what she says, but the way she says it that makes me know that she's got something special. Of course, I think her fortune will be in radio after she gets the whole medical industry all straightened out...but again, that's another story ;-). The point is, she's on her way to change the world while being a great mom at the same time. And I am very grateful for the opportunity to see how she does it.
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