On Becoming a Sister

I was a three-year-old only child when I went to sleep that pre-autumn night. In the early morning, I woke up to the sound of a newborn baby crying. All of a sudden, I was a big sister. Walking into the bedroom at the end of the single-wide trailer and seeing my mom and dad with a tiny new person is my earliest memory. I have pictures of me holding her when she was a baby, and she looked like a little porcelain doll.

When I was five, I remember my dad calling me from the hospital (we were staying with my mom's oldest sister) to tell me I had another sister. He said she looked like a little Indian. I remember more about her babyhood because I was a little older. She was snuggly. She still is.

The three of us had all kinds of childhood fun. My favorite memories are of the forts we made, some out of paths laid into tall weeds, some under the shade of the tamarisk (we called them tamarack) trees, and I remember one that we dug into the ground that had a swimming pool for a roof (or something--I can't really remember what the roof was made of). We carved steps into the hard-packed red dirt that led down into it.

When I was thirteen, we were blessed with another sister. The three of us stood in the doorway of the delivery room when she arrived. I loved her with my whole heart from the moment I first saw her. Tears rolled down my masked face as I listened to her very first cries. After that, we spent a lot of time together. I played a little mommy and she played the cute baby (and she was really good at it!).

It breaks my heart when I think of my youngest sister and how one by one, we all left her behind. I don't know if that is where her amazing independence grows from, but I wish I could have savored her childhood a few years more. I still think of her as my baby sister, even though she is now an adult teenager.

When my mom was almost twenty, she had me. When I was almost twenty, she had my brother. I got married and moved away just after he turned one, so I missed out on most of his life. When I was in elementary school, I remember being fascinated with my friends who had older siblings that they didn't know very well. My sisters and I spent so much time together, I couldn't imagine not knowing a sibling. I later learned what it felt like to be that older sibling: I hope my brother knows I love him even though we didn't ever get to spend much time together.

Being a sister has been one of my favorite roles in life. I know there have been many times I was not what I should have been for each of them, but I always loved them.

And I always will.