They were right

 I became the older sister - 70 years ago today,

My mother and daddy said I needed a playmate.  They said it would be fun. They said I would like it.

They both had sisters.  Mother had four; daddy had one.  They both had aunts they dearly loved.  Mother especially loved her Aunt Mattie Lou and wanted to name this baby Martha Louise in her honor.  Mother's middle name (Louise) had been chosen because my Grandma Nesmith thought her sister in law was such a wonderful woman.  I'm not sure which of daddy's aunts was especially dear to him.  I do know his sister Gloria Faye was the joy of his life.  He also did not want his child to have the name, Mattie Lou.  

And so it was that the baby was born on daddy's sister's birthday.  He won - the little girl's name would be Cynthia - Cynthia Faye.

I went to St. Luke's with daddy when it was time to bring the baby home from the hospital.  In those days the mother and baby rode home in an ambulance.  I got to ride.  That was the beginning of fun - I guess.

Now I was three and a half years old.  I was well settled in my position as the eldest.  I knew how to show that I was in charge.  I took a crayon and wrote on the back of the living room sofa.  

They said I would get used to sharing.  They said I was still important. 

Hum

70 years later.

I did get used to sharing.  We shared a bed and she could not stand it if my feet touched hers. 

When shared chores - she always washed the dishes and I dried because I always seemed to miss something when I was washing.

My mother told us how she shared clothes with her sisters when they were teenagers.  That didn't happen with us.  She got the tall gene.

We shared secrets.  No comment on that one.  We still do!

We share the joy of finding love - hers still lives!  She cried all the way down the aisle when I married the first time.  She stood with me again when I married Rich Suhey.  Neither of us has really ever truly gotten over that loss.  And I still so appreciate the boy from down the street that she married 48 years ago.  I never think of either one of them without the other.  In fact, I often think of the three of us as "the team".

We have shared joy - babies and grandbabies, houses to decorate, friends to celebrate.

We have shared sorrow - the loss of our daddy, her grandbaby, and now our brother.

We have shared concern - for our mother as she is now under full-time nursing care approaching her 98th birthday.

Don't you just hate it when someone keeps telling you that you are going to like something when you are not exactly sure that will be true?  And then you finally have to admit it.

Yep - I do like having a little sister!  They were right!

May your life be filled with enough Sunshine 

to make you appreciate the Shadow