Sister Of Mine

My sister was born twenty three months after me.

She made her entrance into my life as a small, screaming bundle - presented to me with a smile by my parents. My earliest memory is seeing this baby nursing at my mother's chest and immediately sensing that my territory was in serious jeapordy.

For the next seventeen years of my life, that same baby girl would be my cross to bear. She was frustrating in her "little sister" ways and stuck to me like glue. We were the best of friends, we were the worst of enemies.

During our childhood, she made a good playmate - this sister of mine. We played house and baby dolls and all sorts of little girl games. We found mischief together. We climbed the tall trees in our front yard and pretended to be gymnists as we hung from its branches. We performed skits and magic shows for our parents.

She was my partner in a childhood full of memories.

We visited Florida's sunshine and coastline for the first time when she was four years old. The beach was like nothing we had ever known. An unfriendly flock of seagulls visited us there and stole my sister's socks. She was left screaming, ankle deep in salty water, beneath their winged escape. We collected small sand crabs in our water buckets and kept them overnight in the hotel bathtub. My sister and I woke during the night to hear the scraping, clawing sounds of crabs on porcelain. We spent the night holding hands in the darkness.

We shared many years of magical Christmases. We watched the dark, starry nights together - waiting for Santa's sleigh - listening for sounds of reindeer hooves. We endured the slow crawl to daylight for the moment when we could wake our parents and open the gifts beneath our tree.

We dyed Easter eggs, side by side, and then hunted them in the shade of our grandparents' back yard. We wore matching Easter dresses with oversized bows in our hair and smiled for family pictures.

We ate Thanksgiving turkey and played with our cousins as generations grew into the next.

Throughout all of my memories, I see my little sister. The child made up of my same blood - yet so different from me. She was pitifully thin, dark skinned, and loved being outdoors in the humid heat. I was a pale, chubby child - content with reading books and playing with baby dolls. She was hyper and fidgity. I was calm and quiet. We fought like cats and dogs.

She was, in those early days, a constant torment in my life. In every way, my sister's shadow followed me - from elementary school to my teenage years. She was there, always asking to play, always asking to follow, always wanting to participate. My sister never tired of tagging along.

I shared a bedroom with my sister until I was a teenager. Eternally, and by day, she was my forced playmate and often enemy. Occasionally at night, in the quiet of our room, her presence comforted me. Many times our late night giggles and squeals would bring our father to our room, his face set in grim determination to silence us. We were - sometimes - partners in crime...this sister of mine.

In my haste to lose her, I never quite realized when the echo of her footsteps disappeard from mine. They have been gone a long time.

Now, years after sisterly fights and shouting matches have ended, we are living on opposite sides of the country. A span of a thousand miles stretches between us and yet her image is as close as my next heartbeat.

Today we are connected through long distance phone calls, and cell phone pictures, and facebook. Several times a year we are inseperable. There are slumber parties and shopping binges, all night talks and endless stories of "remember when". We are together for what passes like an instant.

My sister and I have shared a lifetime of secrets and tragedies, triumphs and bitter failures. Together we have witnessed the miracle of life and the mystery of death. We have felt the touch of human tenderness and the brush of fate.

This sister of mine... Our lives were forever entwined, long before I knew how much I loved her...and before I knew that my story could never be written without her.