Happy Birthday, Sis

I love my sister so much. She’s one of the coolest people I know, even if I don’t always know what planet she’s on. We’re about as different as two people can be.

My sister was full of attitude growing up, practically spilling over with it. As head-strong as could be. She was the kind of sister that would play with me when she felt like it, but if I solicited her company at the wrong time I became the biggest nuisance in the world. In reality, I just don’t think she knew what to make of me. I was a peculiar little guy, as different from her as I could be. She was aggressive, I was passive. She was an active little girl, and all I wanted to do was listen to records. I was obsessed with music at a very young age, and immersed myself in the world of music as soon as I could reach the knobs on my dad’s self-built amplifier. It was a world that was foreign and vague to her, just as I didn’t understand all of her activity and restlessness. The town of 4,000 we grew up in was too small for her by the time she was six.

And yet, she upheld her sisterly duties and was always there when I needed her the most. We both walked to and from elementary school together, but I was never allowed by her to be within twenty paces of her. She was usually a half-block ahead or behind me, persistently ignoring me the way only a precocious bigger sister can. One day we were walking home at the same time (but not quite together), when a guy named Chris from her class rode up on his bike and started picking on me. I don’t remember what he was saying or doing, only that he wouldn’t leave me alone. He grew more and more bold, hurling bigger insults, threatening more insistently, until finally he was right on top of me. Then, out of nowhere, my sister appears, telling him he must be a real sissy to have to pick on boys three years younger than him and that if he lays a finger on me she’ll level him, and why doesn’t he pick on someone his own size? Chris tucked his tale between his legs and rode off on his bike, embarrassed that a girl got the best of him. I turned to her to say “thank you,” and she looked at me and said “you still can’t walk home with me. Stay here until I’m a half-block away.” She turned and walked off, and I stood as she asked me to and waited for her to be up by Mrs. Lindsley’s house before I started walking again.

An older sister’s love is a strange thing, a creature with a life of it’s own. Sometimes it breathes fire, sometimes it’s indifferent, and sometimes it makes her the best friend and the coolest girl in the world. No matter what, though, I couldn’t do without her.

Happy belated birthday, Sis. We’re still looking for an awesome California gift for you. Thanks for letting me walking home with you, even when I wasn’t exactly walking home WITH you.