You'll like being a big sister

My mother was the "big" sister to Thelma, Carolyn, Ann, and Beth.  She liked that role for the rest of her life.  And sometime in 1950 she began to tell me that I was going to like being a big sister We have heard her tell about this day many times.  Her trip to the delivery room, daddy's happiness in a second little girl.  And I remember a ride in an ambulance with a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. 

That baby was my little sister. The one my mother had been telling me about.

I don’t remember being jealous.

However, I know that I wrote on the back of the living room sofa.

That little sister, Cindy, says that her coming into my life was the beginning of my creativity.

We spent the next eight years enjoying life. We did fun things. We did some things we shouldn’t have.

Once, I took her on a walk over to see our grandma. A friend called Mother and told her that she saw us walking on Ryar Road. We would have had to walk across the Glendale Community Church property. We were switched with a branch by the back door step. I would have been 6 when that happened.

It was also about this time that we broke a lamp in the living room. I was chasing her as we climbed across the back of a chair. She’s the one who caused the crash —

Mother was not home. She took me to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I was still snubbing. I asked her if Daddy told her that Cindy broke the lamp.

“Daddy told me that you and Cindy broke the lamp”.    I still say, “She’s the one who went over the chair when the lamp fell.”

Oh well.

We lived in Sans Souci when Cindy fell off her bike and just knew her arm was broken. She came running in, saying, “Paula, pray, pray, pray.”  Of course, it was broken.

For the rest of our lives, when something happens to either of us, we say "Pray, pray, pray".

We have both experienced happiness and sorrow. When something is happening, we always get through it together.

Cindy has been an incredible support to me. When I came home in 1982, she and Robert were amazing in their love and care for me and my children. When I remarried, she and Robert were the witnesses. When Rich died, she came immediately.

In the 27 years since then, she has continued to encourage and help me and most of all pray for me and for others!

That's where she the most like our mother.  Which makes me quite thankful that. . . 

          May you have enough sunshine in your life 

                                    to help you appreciate the shadows