Tuesday, November 20, 2012- In Honor of my sister
Happy Birthday to my sister tomorrow!
Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but
once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship. ~Margaret
Mead
I am convinced that nobody knows me like my sister. All childhood memories and adult dreams involve her in them. She not only shares the experiences of childhood, but she knows the secret feelings and emotions that are wrapped around those experiences. She has known me through every awkward stage in my life and holds the deepest secrets shared late at night when everyone else had gone to sleep. I like the quote I posted at the beginning because I have to say there were times in our childhood that I do not think you would consider us friends and I am pretty sure there were days my mom was not sure which one of us would make it out alive. I distinctly remember getting so mad at her one time that while she was turned around getting something out of the dresser I ran and jumped on her back and dug my teeth in as far as I could (yes, I was a biter) and my mom had to pry me off her back. When my mom got me off my sister’s back I had actually drawn blood and left a nasty mark on her back. My sister went through a phase of using her favorite phrase, “SHE’S COPYING ME!!!” I think my mom had enough of that when that phrase was used when we were using the same perfume called Exclamation and she went crazy because I smelt like her! Last year for Christmas my mom bought us each a bottle of the stuff (did not know they still made it) for a joke that has carried on all these years. We argued and fought over everything and I will not bring up the frozen chicken story again:) We were polar opposites, so it seemed, growing up. She was the cheerleader and loved being around a big crowd of people. I was just hoping nobody would realize I was there. I was shy and insecure and she seemed to have it all together. I envied her ease of being able to stand out and speak out. She was thin and I was thick and who wouldn’t hate her for that:). I was funnier than her, but since I was so shy about speaking out I would whisper whatever was funny to her and then she would say and get the laughs. I lived under her shadow but I was content to stay right there. I think our relationship really started to form when I was a freshman and she was a junior in high school. We both attended a small Christian school and we were in newspaper, choir, band, and even took German together (Ich leibe meine Schwester!) and it was in those classes that we both could have our own identities while also being together. I do not want to spend the majority of this post of the bad stuff, but the good things about my sister.
My youngest memory of how I viewed my sister was my protector. We shared a room and a bed and every night I would fall asleep holding the corner of my sister’s pillow. I figured if someone came in the night and grabbed me I would wake her up by pulling her pillow and she would keep me safe. She was my playmate. As I said we had really different personalities and did not really play with the same toys, but we still played hours together. We also loved to sing together. I can still picture us sitting around our little red record player belting out the Cabbage Patch songs, “Here we are Raimie, stuck in this old gold mine. Just as sad as we can be, it seems like a long, long time since we laughed and played together you and I…”(Sorry could not resist :) and I think we sang “For Those Tears I Died” like a million times! She sang alto and I sang soprano so we were the perfect duo. She always had a boyfriend so I always had a ride somewhere. She may have hated it, but she never seemed annoyed to have me around with her and her date. She even let me and my boyfriend come along with them a few times. By the time she went off to college and I was starting my junior year of high school we were the best of friends and it was a hard time for me when she went off to college. I finally joined her in Nashville and we were Suite Mates my first year. We were in the same Sorority (I guess since she was the President of that one I better join that one), we were both involved in the missions programs and we had some of the same friends. She was my guide on which boys to stay away from and all the other things needed for a freshman away from home for the first time and it was wonderful to be close to her again. We would then begin the next phase of our life and would only become closer.
I was her Maid of Honor at her wedding. I then married a few years later in which she was my Matron of Honor. She and my dear friend Susan spent the night before my wedding helping me put strawberries and pineapples on skewers for the reception the next day. She spent the time helping me from freaking out. I can still hear her telling me to just breathe and go to sleep because I still had a few hours before I had to be nervous. I would have to say good-bye to living so close to her again when they decided to move to North Carolina. I would not stay far away for long because after our first year of marriage Jeremy and I moved to South Carolina and just about 3 hours away. Shortly after we moved I got the call that my sister was expecting a baby! We both lived so far away from other family that we spent several holidays together. It was Christmas 2003 and my sister was great with childJ since Isabel was to be making her appearance in just a few weeks. Jeremy and I went to NC on Christmas Eve day and we decided that we would make a big Christmas breakfast. Well, since this was our first Christmas without somebody else doing all the planning we did not consider that stores would close early on Christmas Eve. We ended up at Walgreens trying to figure out what we could use to make a decent breakfast. We laughed so hard that I seriously thought Kristy was going to give birth on Aisle 3 of Walgreens! Thankfully, we had already planned on the breakfast because that was about the only meal we could find enough ingredients to make a meal. Isabel held off for two more weeks and was born on January 7th. We made several trips to NC and it was wonderful to spend time with both my sister and my precious niece. Life was good, but the storm clouds were beginning to form. On April 2 of that same year I sat in the parking lot of my doctor’s office and had to call my sister and tell her I had cancer. It was her words I still hear today. She just kept saying how brave I was over and over again. She then headed South to help me through the 3 darkest and scary days of my life. Her and Isabel came and she was once again my protector of my emotional state. She cried with me and tried to take my mind off the appointment with the oncologist that would take place two days after my diagnosis. She took the phone calls that came one after another when I could no longer relive the terrible details of my situation. She sat with Jeremy and I in the oncologist office as I sat and watched women come in one after another for their treatments. She sat and asked the questions to my doctor that Jeremy and I were too dazed to think to ask. She will never know the significance she made on my life in those three days. A few months before my surgery she and her family once again moved away from us when they moved to St. Louis. On February 12, 2004 when the final word came that there were not any more treatments and surgery would have to be done I knew I needed to be with my sister. It was a double bonus that my parents were also in St. Louis, so Jeremy and I boarded a plane and headed to St. Louis for the weekend. I will always remember sitting in her car outside of her house and she said, “Okay, this is going to sound so cheesy, but you are like the wind beneath my wings!” It was the first time that I realized that maybe I had not been merely living in her shadows but I was also a source of the light. April of that same year I would once again move closer to her when we moved back to TN. In May and September we would share the grief of losing our Grandma and Pawpaw. On the very last day of the worst year of my life I would experience the darkest night of my life and it was my sister that would talk me through this unbearable sadness. I did have the comfort on this night because I was actually keeping Isabel for the weekend so it was having a piece of her there with me. It was soon after all the tears that we would welcome Samuel home and life seemed to start making sense again and we now had a new phase of being moms together. It would be a few years later as we waited for Emma to come home that she would once again hold me in bunk bed at Cumberland Camp in TN and let me cry my eyes out over my frustration of not having Emma home. I know I can go on and on but I just realized how long this is getting!
Life a few years ago was not so easy on my sister and it was now my turn to be the supporter. I hope that I was as helpful to her and she was to me in my time of need. We now live a million miles away it seems, but we are closer today than we have ever been before. We see each other several times a year, but talk frequently. I am thankful for me sister. I am thankful that she is my best friend. I am thankful that she knows my unspoken thoughts and feelings just by my facial expressions or the tone of my voice. I am thankful that I can tell her anything with no judgment or condemnation, only encouragement or no words at all.
Happy Birthday!! Thankful every day you were born! I close with this quote I found the other day that fits us perfectly.
Sisters don't need words. They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles
and frowns and winks - expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and
disbelief. Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs - that can undermine any tale
you're telling. ~Pam Brown
Sorry no current picture:(
Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but
once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship. ~Margaret
Mead
I am convinced that nobody knows me like my sister. All childhood memories and adult dreams involve her in them. She not only shares the experiences of childhood, but she knows the secret feelings and emotions that are wrapped around those experiences. She has known me through every awkward stage in my life and holds the deepest secrets shared late at night when everyone else had gone to sleep. I like the quote I posted at the beginning because I have to say there were times in our childhood that I do not think you would consider us friends and I am pretty sure there were days my mom was not sure which one of us would make it out alive. I distinctly remember getting so mad at her one time that while she was turned around getting something out of the dresser I ran and jumped on her back and dug my teeth in as far as I could (yes, I was a biter) and my mom had to pry me off her back. When my mom got me off my sister’s back I had actually drawn blood and left a nasty mark on her back. My sister went through a phase of using her favorite phrase, “SHE’S COPYING ME!!!” I think my mom had enough of that when that phrase was used when we were using the same perfume called Exclamation and she went crazy because I smelt like her! Last year for Christmas my mom bought us each a bottle of the stuff (did not know they still made it) for a joke that has carried on all these years. We argued and fought over everything and I will not bring up the frozen chicken story again:) We were polar opposites, so it seemed, growing up. She was the cheerleader and loved being around a big crowd of people. I was just hoping nobody would realize I was there. I was shy and insecure and she seemed to have it all together. I envied her ease of being able to stand out and speak out. She was thin and I was thick and who wouldn’t hate her for that:). I was funnier than her, but since I was so shy about speaking out I would whisper whatever was funny to her and then she would say and get the laughs. I lived under her shadow but I was content to stay right there. I think our relationship really started to form when I was a freshman and she was a junior in high school. We both attended a small Christian school and we were in newspaper, choir, band, and even took German together (Ich leibe meine Schwester!) and it was in those classes that we both could have our own identities while also being together. I do not want to spend the majority of this post of the bad stuff, but the good things about my sister.
My youngest memory of how I viewed my sister was my protector. We shared a room and a bed and every night I would fall asleep holding the corner of my sister’s pillow. I figured if someone came in the night and grabbed me I would wake her up by pulling her pillow and she would keep me safe. She was my playmate. As I said we had really different personalities and did not really play with the same toys, but we still played hours together. We also loved to sing together. I can still picture us sitting around our little red record player belting out the Cabbage Patch songs, “Here we are Raimie, stuck in this old gold mine. Just as sad as we can be, it seems like a long, long time since we laughed and played together you and I…”(Sorry could not resist :) and I think we sang “For Those Tears I Died” like a million times! She sang alto and I sang soprano so we were the perfect duo. She always had a boyfriend so I always had a ride somewhere. She may have hated it, but she never seemed annoyed to have me around with her and her date. She even let me and my boyfriend come along with them a few times. By the time she went off to college and I was starting my junior year of high school we were the best of friends and it was a hard time for me when she went off to college. I finally joined her in Nashville and we were Suite Mates my first year. We were in the same Sorority (I guess since she was the President of that one I better join that one), we were both involved in the missions programs and we had some of the same friends. She was my guide on which boys to stay away from and all the other things needed for a freshman away from home for the first time and it was wonderful to be close to her again. We would then begin the next phase of our life and would only become closer.
I was her Maid of Honor at her wedding. I then married a few years later in which she was my Matron of Honor. She and my dear friend Susan spent the night before my wedding helping me put strawberries and pineapples on skewers for the reception the next day. She spent the time helping me from freaking out. I can still hear her telling me to just breathe and go to sleep because I still had a few hours before I had to be nervous. I would have to say good-bye to living so close to her again when they decided to move to North Carolina. I would not stay far away for long because after our first year of marriage Jeremy and I moved to South Carolina and just about 3 hours away. Shortly after we moved I got the call that my sister was expecting a baby! We both lived so far away from other family that we spent several holidays together. It was Christmas 2003 and my sister was great with childJ since Isabel was to be making her appearance in just a few weeks. Jeremy and I went to NC on Christmas Eve day and we decided that we would make a big Christmas breakfast. Well, since this was our first Christmas without somebody else doing all the planning we did not consider that stores would close early on Christmas Eve. We ended up at Walgreens trying to figure out what we could use to make a decent breakfast. We laughed so hard that I seriously thought Kristy was going to give birth on Aisle 3 of Walgreens! Thankfully, we had already planned on the breakfast because that was about the only meal we could find enough ingredients to make a meal. Isabel held off for two more weeks and was born on January 7th. We made several trips to NC and it was wonderful to spend time with both my sister and my precious niece. Life was good, but the storm clouds were beginning to form. On April 2 of that same year I sat in the parking lot of my doctor’s office and had to call my sister and tell her I had cancer. It was her words I still hear today. She just kept saying how brave I was over and over again. She then headed South to help me through the 3 darkest and scary days of my life. Her and Isabel came and she was once again my protector of my emotional state. She cried with me and tried to take my mind off the appointment with the oncologist that would take place two days after my diagnosis. She took the phone calls that came one after another when I could no longer relive the terrible details of my situation. She sat with Jeremy and I in the oncologist office as I sat and watched women come in one after another for their treatments. She sat and asked the questions to my doctor that Jeremy and I were too dazed to think to ask. She will never know the significance she made on my life in those three days. A few months before my surgery she and her family once again moved away from us when they moved to St. Louis. On February 12, 2004 when the final word came that there were not any more treatments and surgery would have to be done I knew I needed to be with my sister. It was a double bonus that my parents were also in St. Louis, so Jeremy and I boarded a plane and headed to St. Louis for the weekend. I will always remember sitting in her car outside of her house and she said, “Okay, this is going to sound so cheesy, but you are like the wind beneath my wings!” It was the first time that I realized that maybe I had not been merely living in her shadows but I was also a source of the light. April of that same year I would once again move closer to her when we moved back to TN. In May and September we would share the grief of losing our Grandma and Pawpaw. On the very last day of the worst year of my life I would experience the darkest night of my life and it was my sister that would talk me through this unbearable sadness. I did have the comfort on this night because I was actually keeping Isabel for the weekend so it was having a piece of her there with me. It was soon after all the tears that we would welcome Samuel home and life seemed to start making sense again and we now had a new phase of being moms together. It would be a few years later as we waited for Emma to come home that she would once again hold me in bunk bed at Cumberland Camp in TN and let me cry my eyes out over my frustration of not having Emma home. I know I can go on and on but I just realized how long this is getting!
Life a few years ago was not so easy on my sister and it was now my turn to be the supporter. I hope that I was as helpful to her and she was to me in my time of need. We now live a million miles away it seems, but we are closer today than we have ever been before. We see each other several times a year, but talk frequently. I am thankful for me sister. I am thankful that she is my best friend. I am thankful that she knows my unspoken thoughts and feelings just by my facial expressions or the tone of my voice. I am thankful that I can tell her anything with no judgment or condemnation, only encouragement or no words at all.
Happy Birthday!! Thankful every day you were born! I close with this quote I found the other day that fits us perfectly.
Sisters don't need words. They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles
and frowns and winks - expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and
disbelief. Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs - that can undermine any tale
you're telling. ~Pam Brown
Sorry no current picture:(
I love this. Happy Birthday Kristie.
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