seester

I imagine her standing behind the pulpit telling everyone all the sanitized dirt she has on me, while I sit there, only ashes in a really cool pot, wishing I had a hand with which to reach out and smack her.  And since I imagine I'll be jumping the Great Boa before her, I thought I would take this occasion of her fortieth birthday to do some live-eulogizing. 

"He's my best friend, go away!"

  We always called her Wendy Ramona (clap! clap!)!  I first remember her cute little bald gerber bubble head sticking out of the middle of a puke green round  baby walker.  I would come over to give her a brotherly peck on that fuzzy dome, and she would reach up and grab my golden locks, pulling my head into her mushed teething biscuit... and Dad laughed.  And so, the competition began.  When she could walk, she would toddle around behind me everywhere I went, too good natured to pay any attention to my annoyance of her.  When she got to be too annoying, I showed her my cool spot in the dryer, and how it spun around like a spaceship!  She did not think it was so cool.  It was probably a good thing I did not know how to turn the dryer on...




"Is it cold?"

Throughout grade school our interactions seemed to be in the form of squabbles about who's turn it was to dust, vaccuum, or wash dishes.  There was the occassional contest over the loyalties of our rock star kid brother, which I would win, unless she let him wear one of her nightgowns...  (Ben has ceased the wearing of female sleeping apparal, to my knowledge...)  We played some piano duels, I mean duets, in piano recitals.  (Poor Mrs. Pinnix.)  The little seester was surprisingly good, though, at snitching on me.  In high school she never quite understood that I was the revolutionary to her obviously naive and steril view of life.  But somehow, she had friends.  And somehow, she developed a fairly winsome personality, that most everyone appreciated.  Aside from some violent moments that, apparantly, were all my fault, we made it into adulthood.  I left home to seek my fortune, and a year later, there she was.  She followed me to Grandma and Grandpa's.  I was still annoyed, but tolerated her presence, especially when I did not have a car and she did.  Then I blinked, and we were grown.

Presently, both of us having made homes on opposite ends of the country, I can see that, perhaps, I was not as annoyed as I pretended to be.  I have always believed in her, because I knew she was a better person than me.  She has excelled in every part of her life: in her career, in her marriage, and now, in her home-making and home-schooling skills.  She is a faithful friend to those who return the gesture, and to those who do not.  She is a faithful wife to her husband, she loves the Lord, and teaches her children to live likewise.  And, at forty years old, with all the many good things that could be said about her, I say her unwavering optimistic good nature is still the best thing about her!

We still do not always see eye to eye.  But, I know we will always see heart to heart.  And I think she has finally learned that nothing good results from snitching on her big brother!!

I am very proud of you, Weedy.  Happy fortieth, seester.  I love you.



"You're both my little chubby cucarachas!"