The Meaning of Joy: My Sister My Friend

Day 14 is a day of thanksgiving memories of my sister. I don't know how I'm going to condense my sister down to one page, because she deserves a book.

She was nine years older than me, so there are no memories of playing dolls together, or wearing each other's clothes, but there are stories of admiration, laughter and love.

My sister took care of me from the time I was born. I guess I was her real life baby doll. Our parents divorced when I was three, so Daddy wasn't around and Mom worked everyday, so we didn't see alot of her. We were very poor, but I didn't know it because my sister helped make my life happy.

My brother, my sister, and I slept in one room, and I usually slept with my sister. We had an old radio sitting at the head of the bed, and we'd go to sleep with songs from The Beatles and Elvis filling the room. If we didn't have the radio on, then my sister would sing songs for me until I went to sleep.

Every morning when we would be getting ready for school, I would think how beautiful she was and always would ask her to twirl around so I could see if her skirt would spiral out like a ballerina's. I don't remember her ever getting tired of that game.

There were many times when she would take me on dates with her. I'm sure the boys just loved this idea...said with much sarcasm, but with a grin on my face.

On Saturdays, we would catch the bus to town, and we would window shop and occasionally go see an old Bob Hope movie at the Bijou. When I graduated from kindergarten, I was in a play and mom said I needed a new dress. It didn't occur to me that anyone but my sister would take me on this special day, so my sister took me uptown to shop for the perfect dress. Since, basically everything I wore was hand me downs, this day was wonderful. I was "Mary, Mary ...how does your garden grow?"

We found the perfect little dress! It was green with little, different colored flowers embroidered around the bottom of the skirt. I felt like a princess.

When she would have a girlfriend over for the night, the girls got kind of aggitated at this little red headed intrusion into their discussions of boyfriends, school and teenage drama. However, my sister saw no problem with it, and didn't hesitate to say so. I admired her so.

When she got married and moved away, I felt so alone. She was my sister/mom and I missed her. But, I think she missed me, too, and she would have me come and stay with her for days and days.

My mom remarried and we moved to another state and my visits to my sister weren't as often. However, during the summer, I would stay for weeks with her. By this time, she had given me a little nephew. He was my best little buddy. I held him, fed him and played with him. She never made me feel like I was an intrusion, or any trouble. I was still her little sister and we had good times.

After I married and had my own family, we still made time for each other. I would take my kids and go stay at her house, or she would come to mine. This time of year always brings a flood of memories because she would bring her family to my house for Thanksgiving.

They would arrive on Wednesday evening. My husband and her husband would settle down for some tv, while our boys would gather for some games and goofiness. She and I would go to the kitchen, turn on the Christmas music, and the cooking would begin. We made homemade pumpkin pies, homemade stuffing, potato salads, macaroni salads, and jello salad. We always traditionally made a green jello salad, with nuts, fruit, and cream cheese that got the name "puke salad" that everyone gagged at, but my sister and I loved it and we'd make it just to get that reaction.

Usually, the day after Thanksgiving, after we'd stuffed ourselves like the Thanksgiving turker, we'd go on an outing. We had an extended cab truck with a camper top on it. We'd throw the boys in the back with sleeping bags and snacks while the adults would get in the front, and off we'd go to who knows where. We made many movies of our outings and they are all filled with laughter.

Oh, and did I mention the laughter? When she and I would get together, it became a contagion. Everything made us laugh. We'd laugh at everything that moved. I can remember laughing so hard and thinking to myself "can someone actually die from laughing" because we couldn't stop and we couldn't get our breath. I remember a time when we were sitting on my front porch of an apartment I lived in and the lady across the street was so nosy that she'd pretend like she was washing the window on her storm door just so she could see what we were doing. After days of this, my sister and I decided we'd put our hands up to our eyes, like binoculars, and look back at her. We did this and then we nearly fell off the porch laughing at ourselves. We always cracked ourselves up.

A quote I read that is us, "Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer."-Louis Gluck. She

was my watcher as I danced through life.