13 Days to go

When I was little my sister was a pest. She was the baby, and being six years younger than me, she always seemed to act like a baby. She was a master tattletale running to mom at the slightest altercation. "Mo-om!" she'd call with a pitch and volume rivaling an ambulance siren. And no matter what the circumstances, it seemed she got away with murder, while I, on the other hand, was "the oldest" and was expected to "set an example." She drove me crazy!

There was the time that she wrecked my Barbies...
Sometime during high school I decided to neatly organize and store all my Barbie stuff (and I had a lot) for my posterity. I dressed each doll in their outfit, brushed their hair, and arranged the piles of clothes carefully. I put the dolls in my mom's hand-me-down yellow make-up bag. And put all the clothes in shoe boxes. I stacked all of the paraphernalia at the back of my closet.

One summer, when I was back from college, I was in Katie's room. I noticed that some of her dolls looked very familiar...and the clothes...didn't I have some just like them? Then it dawned on me. Katie had raided my Barbies! I rushed to my closet to find the shoe boxes ransacked and the my most prized dolls missing. Oh the anger!

Then there was the time that she wrecked a first kiss...
I had been dating a wonderful guy named Chip. On the night in question, Chip had taken me on a romantic train ride then treated me to dinner at a cafe in Hyannis. We'd been on a handfull of dates, things were going well, and I was giddy with the expectation of our first kiss. He drove from the train station back to my house holding my hand the entire way. Instead of walking me directly to the door, he took a detour, and we walked down a path that led from my house to Shawme pond. We sat on our dock watching the stars. He put his arm around me. My stomach was cartwheeling. He leaned in...only to be interrupted by an assault of high-pitched giggles.

We were both startled. I turned around to see Katie and her friend hiding, unsuccessfully, behind some bushes. I yelled my sisterly yell at her. She scrammed. But the damage had been done - the moment had been ruined. Sure, he still kissed me. But the butterflies in my stomach had been changed to battle axes ready to kill my sister.

Fast forward 17 years...

Katie, now 29, arrived on Wednesday for a whirlwind twenty-four hour visit. Since she lives on the other side of the continental US, I rarely get to see her in person. However, there is no one that I talk to more often than her. Besides my husband, Katie knows me the best.

We stayed up talking and eating cake until way too late. The next day, I had arranged a sitter for the kids, so we spent the entire day together - just the two of us. We shopped and lunched and talked. We talked about books, politics, love, motherhood, church, school, goals, heartaches--everything that was important to us. As we sat at the restaurant table dipping warm bread in olive oil, I looked at my sister and felt so much appreciation for her. Gone was the pesky, tattling, younger sister. In her place sat a beautiful, mature, engaging, funny, smart lady.

I know she could fill multiple blog pages documenting all the horrible things I did to her when she was little (stealing her best Barbie clothes in unfair trades, embarrassing her while she talked on the phone to boys, and teasing her relentlessly). Perhaps her infractions against me were mere retributions. But thankfully, and surprisingly, we've forgiven each other.

And here we were 17 years later laughing, sharing, and talking. Who would have ever guessed that my adolescent nemesis would end up being my best friend?

I love you Katie!