Sisters Are…

Sisters are...
Sometimes pests.
Often annoying.
Sources of joy.
And for loving all the time.

I found this little poem written by my thirteen year old self while digging through some old papers and pictures looking for something I had hidden from myself. The whole time I was growing up, I only had sisters. I didn’t get brothers until I was a freshmen in college. The first two came with another sister, who shared my birthday, and later still came my baby brother. I can’t say little brother any more since he towers over me.

Going through the pictures, the first almost fifteen months of my life, there are only pictures of my smiling parents holding a chubby little girl – guess I’ve always been chubby – with a mop of dark hair. Then the pictures change to show two little girls dressed as cowgirls or holding hands by flowering bushes. One with straight dark hair and one with curls who looked like pictures of her mother. I don’t remember ever being without her.

Then we got a real live baby doll to play with just a month before Christmas. We put her in the heavy duty baby buggy we got for Christmas that year and rolled her all over the apartment. We only gave her up when she cried, then she was Mother’s. We made quite a picture. Three little girls with chubby cheeks and shining eyes.

And then there were four. This sister had wispy light colored hair and pale eyes. She looked a little like a Kewpie doll. She always seemed to have a runny nose that we later learned was from her deviated septum. She was the dividing line between the three big girls and the three little girls.

She was followed by the dark haired, dark eyed baby who always desperately wanted to be “big” like her sisters. We convinced her she was an angel and was sprouting wings. She would “fly” from stairs or ledges into the arms of a waiting sister. We warned her she could only practice if one of us was there to catch her since her wings weren’t fully formed. And Mother didn’t need to know she was practicing!

Then there were six. I insisted the new baby’s crib be at the foot of my bed so I could take care of her. I even got up in the night to give her a bottle and rock her back to sleep. To say she was doted on is a gross understatement. All she had to do was point and she got her heart’s desire. Mother was afraid something was wrong when she didn’t start talking when the rest of us had. Then school started and with no one to be at her beckon and call, she just started talking – clearly and in almost complete sentences. Earlier this month, “my baby” became a grandmother for the first time. Seeing her hold her little granddaughter made me vividly remember holding her the same way… It also made me feel my age, at least for a moment or two.

I have been so truly blessed, not only with my first five sisters, but my brothers and youngest sister, too. I’ll never be a Poet Laureate, but I’m good enough to stir some old memories.

Sisters are...
Your best friends.
Your worst enemies.
Your greatest supporters.
And my greatest treasures!

Thank you all for being mine!