Melissa

My first little sister.  We loved and hated each other with as much ferocious intensity as any other pair of sibling girls separated by two years.   We were born from the same parents, lived in the same house, ate the same food and managed to turn out to be complete polar opposites.  Melissa played with her dollies and wore pink dresses.  She gave her Barbie’s haircuts and had tea parties for her stuffed animals.  I rode my bike down canal embankments and climbed trees.  I refused to shower regularly or wear a shirt.  I allowed my hair to be cut only because it kept it out of my face while I was playing tackle football with the boys in the front yard.

She insisted on tagging along with me and asking questions when I would go to my best friend Brian's house to play Super Mario.  She always wanted to play, but she could never figure out how to do anything on her own.  She would get bored and want us to play house with her, and then she would get mad when we refused.  She would often run home crying, feelings hurt and tattle on me for being mean.  Maybe I was mean.  I was practically her big brother.  Big Brothers are supposed to be mean. 

We both managed to struggle through our individual and parallel childhoods, survive the tragedies of our teen age years and emerge on our feet.  We have both shaken the dust of our years of conflict and rivalry, and allowed that dust to fertilize a close and loving friendship.  We talk every day, and I do my best to be a good big sister for her now.  I love both of my little sisters more than anything else in this world, and would do anything for either of them.

Melissa has two little ones of her own now, and I worry about and love them just as much as I worry about and love my sisters.  She is a good mother.  She constantly amazes me with how intuitive and wise she is in the ways of parenthood.  If I ever have children of my own, I hope to be a wonderful parent, just like my little sister is.