Love Thy Little Sister

My sister called this afternoon to announce that she misses me and wanted to get together. We decided to take the drive up to East Cleveland and have dinner at BD's Mongolian BBQ. We made plans with my brother to meet us up there after work. For your normal person this would not be a big deal, right? Going out to dinner with your husband and a couple of your siblings, having great food and more than a few good laughs? No, not an odd arrangement for most people, but for me it's quite surreal.

My brother and I have always gotten along extremely well but my sister is 5 years younger than me and there was a time when our entire family feared that one day we would kill each other. We fought like cats and dogs. She knew the exact buttons to push and I knew the words that would hurt her the most, and she would push those buttons and I would say those words without feeling remorse. Looking back on it now I can see that all she was trying to do was be my friend. I think she has also come to the realization that I was not an entirely balanced teenager. At that time I had so many mental complications in my life and the only way I knew how to deal with her neediness was to push her away. I honestly don't think I was quite all there. I was working so hard to find something good in this world to stick around for that I didn't see the obvious answer.. my family. I don't remember when it finally hit me that everything that I needed to be happy had been surrounding me the entire time. All I know is that when I finally realized this my sister and I became great friends.

Since then I have apologized to her profusely for not being there when she needed me the most. Now that I am mature enough and sane enough to look back on some of the problems that she had to deal with in those days I feel incredibly lucky that she is even on speaking terms with me.

Her last assignment before graduating from high school earlier this month was to write an autobiography of her life up to this point. She did this using her poetry, pictures, and a few paragraphs. I was shocked and near tears when I turned to chapter 2 titled "My Hero" and found a photo collage of myself. She wrote about our arguing but said through it all she wanted to be just like her big sister. She wrote about the troubles I went through just to graduate from high school and said she was proud of me for being able to pick myself up and become successful in life. My personal favorite was her description of me "breaking out of my shell" to reveal this great person who has inspired her to become who she is today.

While I feel completely unworthy I am still honored. This was a very sweet thing for her to do. I'm just surprised that I was able to influence her this much. I'm also a little scared that I was able to influence her this much.

Mental note: Try to pay more attention to the things that you do and say around other people. It might just come back to slap you in the face one of these days.