2,006 Words about My Sister

Several months ago, I wrote a bunch of words about my brother. I mentioned at that time that I also have a sister, Erin, and now, at last, her time has come. Here on her [big one] birthday, I present to you 2,006 words about my sister.

Erin is seven and a half years older than I am, so she was in double digits by the time I formed my first memories of her. They were, as they so often are, of bath time. Erin helped my mom bathe my brother and me, and when my mom wasn’t in the room, Erin and Mark played a fun little game of Trick Emily, She’s Innocent and Gullible. They would say, “Emmy, Emmy, there’s something on the wall behind you. Stand up and see what it is.” I’d stand up to take a look and my sister would promptly zerbet my butt. Mark and Erin laughed and laughed as I sat back down in indignation. Then they’d pull it again. “Really, Em, there’s something there. I promise I won’t do it again.” You know how this ends.

Erin didn’t walk through the house. She ran. She ran, and she jumped up and hit every doorframe on her way. Leaping and running, leaping and running. You’d hear her smack the frame with her hand, and then you’d probably hear her smack her toes on the coffee table or dresser or fireplace or piano. She never knew where her toes were in relation to the rest of her body. “Ouch! It ‘urts. It ‘urts,” was an everyday refrain.

She was a pretty good kid, but she acted up from time to time. One time she had been grounded (for whatever reason) and told that she couldn’t have any friends over. I’m betting she was around thirteen at the time. My parents left her home alone while she was grounded, so naturally she invited her friend Amanda over to hang out. Erin’s bedroom was above the garage, so when my parents came home early, much to Erin’s surprise and dismay, she heard the garage door open from her room. With only moments to plan her friend’s escape, she grabbed Amanda’s hand and ran down the upstairs hall to my bedroom, whose window opened to the roof of the screened-in porch behind the house. Downstairs was too dangerous. There was only one way out now. She forced Amanda out my bedroom window and onto the porch roof. The roof slanted toward the ground, of course, so it gave Amanda a few more feet of safety, but it was still a giant fall. Poor Amanda, petrified, perched on the edge of the roof and surveyed her future down below. Erin whisper-screamed, “JUMP!” Amanda shook her head. “Jump right now!” Head shake. “Amanda, get your butt off the roof!” A deep breath and a flying leap.

My parents didn’t find out for years.

Erin didn’t invite me along to play with her and her friends, but she didn’t exactly exclude me either. Sometimes, she dedicated whole evenings just for me. I wanted nothing more in the whole world than a Barbie house. I had loads of hand-me-down Barbies, but no hand-me-down house. Erin solved the problem by building me whole Barbie houses out of household items. The structure was made of books (the Children’s Classics series was particularly useful for stairs), and the furniture came from sundries she found lying around. The little three-legged plastic white things that came in pizza boxes were Barbie coffee tables. The rubber hot water bottle was a Barbie couch. Erin’s Barbie mansions were three stories tall and full of small surprises. She’d lock herself in her room while she worked; then she’d bring me in for the grand reveal. A year or two later, a friend gave me a real Barbie Dream House. I found it deeply disappointing.

Erin showed me how to do cartwheels and headstands. She had a pair of giant pom-poms, ‘80s style, and she taught me a few cheers. She showed me how to play “Heart and Soul” on the piano. She had a special way of making me feel like I was big stuff.

When she was 16 or 17, Erin took me to a haunted walk for Halloween. You can’t imagine how excited I was to go out with my sister, just the two of us. She borrowed a friend’s truck and played me a song from her friend’s tape collection. “You’ll like this one, Em,” she said, and played this song. I was rolling with my sister, listening to a song about pretty brown eyes like ours. It was worth every second of screaming my head off on the haunted walk.

Our family was close with another family that had two girls. Jennifer was near Erin’s age (probably about 16 at the time) and Katy was near mine (somewhere around 9 or 10). We were all having a sleepover one night, Jen and Erin doing their thing, Katy and me doing ours, when Erin and Jen decided they were going to sneak out. They debated and schemed in the bedroom. We could wear black and go out the window. We can’t let Katy and Em hear us. If we’re quiet when we pass Mom and Dad’s bedroom… Etc. They were just getting up the nerve to go when they heard Katy and me in the living room. They came out to find that we had just returned from a midnight walk around the block. We had gone out the front door, naturally, and returned by the same method. Sometimes the younger girls can teach the older girls a thing or two.

I remember going out with Erin when she was about eighteen. We were starting to look more alike as I got older, and people were calling me “Little E.J.” She curled her hair in hot rollers most days, so she did mine the same way on this particular night. I can remember sitting on the chair in the dining area while she dabbed a little bit of makeup on me. We drove in the Jeep with the top down and visited her boyfriend (hot stuff), who was working at the ice cream shop. She bought me a scoop of Rocky Road and I basked in the glory of everyone saying we looked so much alike.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that she had lost her mischievous side. Around that same time, I was trying my darndest to do the splits. My friend Jenny and I were stretching every single day. I couldn’t do a front split, but I was getting closer and closer to a side split. At long last, I did it. I had won!

Erin was in the front yard when I ran up to the house, shouting that I had finally done it. “Erin! Erin! I did it! I did the splits! I did the splits!”

“Oh, you mean like this?” she said, as she dropped into a perfect front split.

She was a lifeguard at the local pool, and I remember one night at the pool in particular. Erin and all of her lifeguard friends were closing down after hours, but they let me stay. The pool had three enormous slides that were usually governed by strict rules, but after hours, anything went (shhhh). Erin let me slide face-first and do some spins while she cleaned up and clocked out. I had ridden my bike to the pool, but Erin packed it into the back of the Jeep and gave me a ride home. She was full-on eighteen years old at the time, and I was eleven, so I was used to Erin having an active social life that took place largely outside our home. She was often out with friends, often home late. I had already considered it a special night because she let me stay late at the pool, but when we got home, she said, “Hey, Em, I’m in the mood for blueberry muffins. Want to bake some with me?” It was already 11:00, but I was all in. We stayed up and made muffins and talked.

As busy as Erin was, she often made time for us to be together. If she was home at night on the weekends, she’d sometimes invite me to sleep in her room so we could stay up to talk and listen to music together. I don’t know what we talked about, but I remember the feeling of peace and fun. I just liked to be with her. I also remember that she’d often read a chapter or two of the Bible to me while I drifted off to sleep.

She made chocolate pudding in champagne flutes and topped it with whipped cream. To this day, I think all puddings should be served in champagne flutes.

She was the worst brownie maker ever. They always burned.

We moved to Kentucky the same year Erin entered her freshman year of college. Erin was in Kentucky with us for about a month before she embarked on her new life out of the house, so most of our Kentucky friends didn’t know her at all. It always bothered me that people there didn’t think of her when they thought of our family. I wanted everyone to see how great she was. I wanted them to know that I had an older sister and that she was adventurous. She was in just about every sport in high school, not because she was passionate about any of them, but because she was willing to try anything and just wanted to have fun with other people. She sang in front of our church of hundreds. I’d never have the guts to do that. She was hot enough that she got asked out by an airman when she was working at the pool, which is just about the coolest thing that can happen to a recent high school grad, but she was lame enough to take him to church for their date. She literally took him to church.

Today is Erin’s birthday, and it’s a BIG ONE. She is now a wife and mother. In fact, she’s a super-mother of seven kids. She’s ridden all kinds of waves--the same that we all face in our adult years--and she’s done it with such grace. Erin and I still talk too late into the night every time we see each other. We’ve done it when she’s had to get up with infants in the wee hours of the morning. We’ve done it the nights before our weddings, when we were desperate for sleep but too worked up to close our eyes. We’ve talked too late on school nights and work nights.

We talk on the phone only once every couple of months. I told her recently that our problem is that we wait too long to call each other, so when we do talk, we have two months of conversation to catch up on and we stay on the phone for a couple of hours. That means we have to set aside a few hours for a phone call, which makes us wait longer to call each other. I suggested we talk every week or two. Then we’d only be on the phone for a half hour or so, and we’d stay in touch better. We tried that for about three weeks, only to find that we were talking two hours every time, just the same.

Erin has counseled me through all sorts of decisions. She has listened when I’ve been stressed, and she has gently prodded me when she felt it was needed. She kept me from making at least one serious error, when I was thinking about dating a boy I shouldn’t have been thinking about dating. She loves completely, and gives of herself to those she loves. I couldn’t be luckier to have such a sister on my side. Plus, look at them gams!





I love you, Erin. Happy hmumrrmptieth birthday!

1,587 Words about My Brother

Let's talk about my brother Mark, please. I was going to write this for his birthday, but that's long past now, so I'll just write it for the heck of it. This is going to be entirely about my brother, but let me state now that I also have a sister who I adore. I have a thousand things to say about what she means to me, but this particular piece is reserved for Mark. Let's discuss him.

My brother, you need to understand, is an enigma. If a person can fail a personality test, he has failed them all. He always lands right down the middle of every category. He is all personalities and no personalities. He is person. A few months ago I asked him what category he thought his personality fit into. He said, "Whichever one is where you're happy except when people are stupid."

Since we can't examine test scores to learn about my brother, let's take a look at his actions. I'm his sister, so I can only see him as his sister. I have to write what I've experienced from my position, not what I imagine his friends, wife, colleagues, kids, etc. experience. Let's start at the beginning.

My parents say that my brother cried without ceasing for the first three years of his life. He would not be cuddled or comforted. They suspected that he had some kind of health problem, perhaps digestive, so he underwent all kinds of tests and went on a gluten-free diet in case it was celiac. Nothing helped. He outgrew whatever it was before they could diagnose it, so my bedraggled parents never found out what caused his three years of wailing. Whatever it was, I like to think that I cured it with my arrival.

When I was born, Mark was immediately fascinated with me, the new baby. He would pat my head every time he passed me. No matter how they tried, my parents couldn't get him to quit patting my head, so they taught him to pat gently. That's the way it was, and that's the way it stayed.

Mark and I were buddies from the start. One of our favorite games was Trip and Fall, which consisted entirely of Mark tripping and falling for my amusement. We built snow forts and rode bikes together. I followed him everywhere. (I'm 32 years old now, and I still catch myself following him around the house.) I remember one time when we played out in the snow for as long as we could stand it. I was five years old at the most, so Mark must've been about eight. Snow had crept into my mittens, and my hands were freezing. I had just learned about frostbite, so I was terrified that my hands were going to fall off. Mark took me to his friend Adam's house, which was closest (our own home was a distant three houses away), and asked if we could come inside to get warm. He wrapped my hands in blankets, and I watched him play Sorry! with Adam until I thought that my limbs were out of danger.

When we got a little older, our roaming range expanded. We moved to an air force base in Oklahoma, which was just about as safe as could be. We were free to go anywhere we wanted on base. Every Saturday was the same. Mark would come in and wake me up (surprise, surprise, I slept later than he). Then we'd plop on the floor and watch cartoons together, stopping only for a small cereal break. If you learn nothing else of Mark, know this: he is, and has always been, the king of cereal. After cartoons, we'd put on play clothes and shoes and just leave for the day. In the summer we'd go to the pool. In other seasons we'd ride our bikes to the general store and play arcade games or pick out toys. For lunch we had two slices of Anthony's Pizza (pepperoni) and two Clearly Canadians, always. Mark paid for my food and arcade games out of his lawn mowing money. After that, we were off to the bowling alley or dollar theater, both a short bike ride away. I saw Jurassic Park with him at that theater—his second time, my first—and that was my first PG-13 movie at a theater.

Friday nights were movie nights for us at home. "Which one is it gonna be: Indiana Jones, Back to the Future 2, or Hook?" We saw the drinking contest at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but we didn't understand alcohol or drunkenness. We just thought they didn't like the taste of whatever it was they were drinking. We didn't like the taste of grapefruit juice, so we figured we'd have grapefruit juice drinking contests. We never seemed to get loopy like the people in the movie, so we kept drinking until we were full and sick instead. Then we'd walk it off outside for an hour or so. We did this many times. I don't know if my mom was exasperated that all her grapefruit juice was gone the day after she bought it, or happy we were getting fruit juice and taking walks. Maybe both.

Mark saw Rookie of the Year before I did and came home and described it to me scene for scene. The entire movie. I loved it.

Mark has never been a particularly silent or chatty person—like most of us, he falls somewhere in the middle—but every time he has spoken, he has spoken his mind. When he was about twelve years old, he famously told a girl he didn't like to "Quit calling me! I hate you!"

Our bedrooms shared a wall, so we had secret knocks to say "goodnight" and I love you."

We hid behind a chair and eavesdropped when our mom and grandma (Mama Jo) got into a fight, which was the only time we heard grown-ups really arguing. It was like sneaking a bite of birthday cake before the candles have been lit.

Mark got me through middle school. It was a lonely, nasty time for me. Our sister was away at college, so I relied on Mark more than ever. I was 13, 14, and uncool. Mark was 16, 17, and if not cool, at least well-liked. He had his own life and friends, and he was out of the house a lot more, but he still included me. He still played games with me. We made up a game called Porch Ball, and we look forward to dominating at the Olympics as soon as the committee adds it to the games. Mark gave me rides around town. He watched movies with me and introduced me to The Simpsons.

Mark stole my milk at dinner every night. He'd watch me until I wasn't paying attention, then he'd switch my full glass with his empty glass. Sometimes he'd drink straight from my glass. Sometimes, if he could get me to lock onto a story he was telling, he would pour my milk into his empty glass while I was looking straight at him. He had to keep his hands steady and confident and his voice impassive, but he got really good at it. Those were his great victories.

When he was trying to get up the nerve to ask a girl to a dance, we rolled a ball back and forth to each other in the upstairs hallway. Occasionally he'd go over to the phone, pick it up, and set it back down, then come back to roll the ball. We talked a little bit about the girl and the dance, but mostly we just rolled that ball. We did that for hours.

I cried when he left for college, but he left a note for me under my pillow, listing all our inside jokes. I keep it in my box of treasures, of course.

That's basically the last time we lived in the same house. I think he moved back home and commuted to school for one semester of college, or maybe that was a summer, but things were different at that point. I was happy in high school and was out of the house with my friends a lot. Mark was a grown-up, or at least as much a grown-up as he'll ever be.

So let's examine Mark's personality now that we've seen him from childhood to adulthood.  There's the brutal truth-telling part of him. That's harsh, but I can't exactly fault him for that. You don't have to wonder where you stand with Mark. But behind that, or rather in front of that, there is great kindness, gentleness, and fun. He still loves to make up games. He would still trip and fall for children if he thought it would make them laugh. He recently lamented to me that a gigantic snow pile had formed in the middle of his office's parking lot last winter, but he couldn't convince anyone to dig a fort with him. Twice he has flown me out to visit his family, at great expense to himself and without a word of regret or bitterness. As I've said before, he sent my husband and me on a trip out of town, complete with sailing charter, when I had a miscarriage.

I do not know what his personality is, and I suppose I don't care. Throw away the tests. There's porch ball to play.