Happy Birthday Sister of Mine!

     She has always been there. Or at least as long as I have had an operative memory. She was born just one year and fifteen days after me, and from that moment until I left to go to college at eighteen, she and I shadowed one another. As young children we were literally inseparable but it was easy to tell us apart. She has thick dark very fine hair with chocolate eyes. My hair was lighter and I have greenish blue eyes. She was a happy and funny little girl from the start. As we grew, I was far from the typical firstborn (I think most are conformists and upholders of the right rule to a great degree) which I attribute to the fact that she and I really smudged the first-born/second born line of primogeniture in our family (if such a thing exists). I was always a rebel who pushed any and all boundaries in my quest to determine the efficacy of the rules under which I lived, and she was the one who wanted to do everything right and everything well which she invariably did. We shared a bedroom. As you might well imagine, it was the source of a number of vociferous arguments. She is incredibly neat and organized. I am much more of a fly by the seat of your pants type of person who can usually manage to pull it all together...at the last minute, no less. When we were younger she liked to dust, to clean, and to iron. I hated those things then, and I hate them now. Some things never change. We were a study in contrasts in many regards:  I was tall (awkwardly so at an early age) and she was tiny. I am loud and she is soft-spoken. Yet the bond that we share is like that three-fold cord described in scripture...it is not easily broken. In fact, I like to think that it will never be broken.

     She is so dear to me that I cannot wrap words around what rises up in my heart when I think of this steadfast sister of mine standing beside me through the years. She covered for me, rescued me on many occasions and when she could not set aside the inevitability of some of my most stupid choices, she did not lecture me to death (though I do remember a few of her baleful stares!), she simply loved me.
   She makes me laugh. She makes me cry. She and my other sister are the best gifts my mother could have ever given me. I am thankful that we like each other. I think she and my other sister are secretly happy I don't live in the same town with them. I am absolutely certain that I would drive both of them crazy. So from my safe haven (425 miles away), I wish you dear sister, the happiest of birthdays....I do and always will love you! You have my heart.