Twenty-seven years ago today the course of my life was forever altered. I went from being the precocious, adorable only-child of my parents, to the responsible eldest sister.
On this day a child was born and they called her Ericka. She’s more commonly known around these parts as Sister #2. She was the perfect foil to my blonde quiet shyness. Dark-haired, dark-eyed and born to raise hell– that’s my sister.
My mom is quite fond of telling one particular story of our sisterhood. It starts out with me all of 5 and Sister #2 at the tender age of 3. As the story goes, one of the neighborhood boys was picking on me. That happened quite often because I was this shy, dorky, incredibly tall kid. I was probably mouthy when provoked, but could really never put-up when I should have. I was a chicken. C’mon cut me a little slack, I was 5.
While I don’t remember the altercation that ensued, one of the boys’ mother did. She was most upset that this giant blonde girl had been picking on her precious pookie or some such nonsense. The mother marched over to our house with her freshly beat-up son in tow. She pounded on the door and started yelling at my mom. The lady screamed, “your daughter beat my son with the garden hose!”
My mom was stunned.
“Which daughter?” my mom asked. Apparently the boy’s mom didn’t know and asked her son.
“The big one,” the mother said.
My mom called me to the door.
The mother was outraged seeing me looming in the doorway. I probably outweighed the kid and had him by a good 5 inches.
“You really ought to teach your daughter not to pick on kids smaller than her,” the mother said.
“That’s not the one,” the boy allegedly piped up, “the brown-haired one beat me up.”
As my mother tells the story, Sister #2 appeared in the doorway, fresh from a bath in footie pajamas and looking very much like the perfect little lady.
The mother was so taken aback that she just turned on her heel and left. This story has become somewhat of a family legend. Not one of my finest moments, but it nicely demonstrates the ferocious love that sisters give to each other.
But that ferociousness was not always about love. Last week I told this story on my website:
Tonight in parentland, I showed Sister #2 this thing I am working on for work. In this thing I have some text and in it, I write: “You could tell the story about how you tried to push your younger sister down the basements steps and instead of falling she socked you good and then you cried (or not).
Sister #2 laughed and laughed because she remembers the time I tried to push her down the basement steps and how she socked me right in the jaw and how I said that I think she chipped my bone and mom and dad were gonna be really pissed. I think she might have cried as much as I did, begging me not to tell on her.
Then she pulled up the sleeve of her shirt showing me her forearm. There are three thin white scars about an inch and a half long.
“Remember these?”
“No, did I do that?”
“Yes! I show Jaycie and Max all the time,” she said, “Look, look what Aunt Jodi did to me.”
“When did I do that?”
“When I hit you with the tongs.”
“You hit me with tongs?”
“Yes, we were still living in Blaine. We were pretty old at the time. Jodi Hanson remembers. I hit you with the tongs and you just clamped onto my arm with your fingernails. It hurt like hell.”
“Wow, I don’t remember that at all.”
“It hurt.”
“I’m sorry. At least I never hit you in the face!”
“At least I never scarred you for life.”
sisterhood is a tumultuous relationship at best. We battle each other and we fight each other’s battles.
I’ve had some legal problems lately– it’s been causing me to lose sleep, not to eat and numerous other headaches. Finally, Saturday, I confessed everything to Sister #2. She was immediately on my side, standing up for me and pledging her full support.
She said, “When you march down to the ACLU, I’ll be right there with you.”
the words brought tears to my eyes. Even though I often forget it, she’s just the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me.
Happy birthday Ericka, I love you.