Sisterly love

I've always felt a little sorry for people who are only children. Who did they argue with when they were young? Who was there to play with them when all the neighborhood kids were sick? Who mocked them unmercifully when their mother cut their bangs in the front yard? And left them crooked? Who do they share familial inside jokes ("Round key, ridges up?" "Picka my up!" "She's your mother!") with? My older sister and I have, for the most part, gotten along incredibly well. Unless you count the time she tried to kill me. To this day, she swears it was an accident. Sure it was, Kel, suuuuure it was. You never wanted a little sister, admit it! ;)

I was maybe four years old and we had just gotten back from a long car ride and daddy had given us each a shiny new penny (hey, we were young and didn't know he was being cheap LOL) for being good. Kelly and I were in my bedroom playing "Nurse." I was the patient and she was the nurse. She took my mock temperature and decided that I needed medicine. She handed me one of our pennies and told me to take my medicine. I did. I was four and she was bossy. It got caught in my throat and I remember Kelly yelling for daddy. He came running in and picked me up and carried me into the living room. Mom was vacuuming and I remember she had the coffee table turned upside down on the sofa. Anyway, he was pounding me on the back and I remember the look of terror on my mom's face. She told daddy that it wasn't working and I was turning blue. Daddy laid me on the floor, grabbed me by the ankles, lifted me up and started pounding on my back even harder. The penny shot out of my mouth, hit the front door and fell to the ground where it spun around in little circles. I know it sounds strange that I remember so much detail, but I do. My sister and I were wearing matching flannel nightgowns, mine had pink flowers while hers had purple ones. After the crisis, my mom sat down and cried, and Kelly told me she was sorry she hurt me. Daddy told me I scared him. I got ice cream for dinner. And now it's just one of those stories we tell around the dinner table. "Hey, remember the time Kelly tried to kill me?"

Growing up, my sister and I got on each other nerves on a regular basis...just as God intended siblings to behave. Being the baby sister, I'm sure I tagged along when she'd rather I just disappear, and I'm sure she got tired of being told to look after me. But she always did. I will always remember when we would walk to school in the wintertime, she would act as a wind block for me. If the wind was coming from in front of us, she'd tell me to grab the back of her coat, put my hooded face up against her and snuggle in tight. If it was coming from behind us, she'd wrap her arms around me from the back and use her shoulders as a wind break. Even now that we're both adults (well, one of us is more adult than the other - not too hard to figure out which is which) she's still always got my back. And that's a great feeling.

That's why I feel sorry for only children. They've never known that type of sisterly love. Or had one of their siblings try to kill them...hey, maybe those only children are onto something!