Love posted 10/27/2009 10:53:09 PM | 10 kudos what's this?     report abuse

ColdinWisconsin

She was always there. I can't remember a moment when she was not. She got their first so she had dibs. On everything. On everything good anyway. At least that is the way it seemed.

I was hungry and she taught me how to make rice. She didn't make it herself mind you, but she taught me. It's one of my first memories of our time together. How our relationship would play out over the next 4 decades. My first coherent realiziation that there was no place for being "needy" in my life...no one would fill the need. But a desire to be self sufficient and I had my first and best teacher.

She taught me how to shave my legs, use a tampon and how to pin my broken bra straps. She taught me how to dance and how to swear (BitchShitDamn)

Did you ever see the movie Signs? With Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix? There is a brief moment in that movie where the two men are sitting on the couch and discussing hope. Belief in life after death...the future. The younger brother is frightened and seeking reassurance. Needing his brother to tell him that there is life. That he would believe.

His brother failed him on a grand scale in that brief moment in that movie, and while the two of us watched that movie together she wept. We both did. She in outrage that an older sibling would be so careless with the younger. It made no difference that these were grown men. This responsibility was for life. She believed that right down to her bones. She still does.

She was the one who noticed that while I was forced to write with my right hand, I used a bat and did gymnastics leading with my left. She was the one who caught on that while I wasn't stupid, my grades were abysmal at best. She was the one who figured out I was dyslexic and when no one would listen, screamed at the top of her lungs at a teacher to let me take the exam orally instead of written. I got 100% and again, in that moment, she did not do it for me, but taught me how to get it done.

She was the one who would become many things in life. Many jobs, occupations and degrees, but the one she focused on night after night while raising two children was to be a dyslexic tutor. Something that seemed beyond her reasoning, she wanted to know where the switch got flipped in my head. Not just my head, but may children's.

And she tutored me. A 35 year old woman. And I'd grit my teeth and work my way through those stupid skills and go home frustrated night after night. My embarrassment at not being able to conquer those repetitious skills, my stupidity making me cry on the way home, and I just wanted to quit.

She tutored me for free of course. And while she was willing to teach me, it was up to me to produce the works. And once we both had that moment where we looked at each other and grinned at my work, she told me it was time. She made me promise her I would write. I would write as if I did not care. I would take what I had learned and apply it and seek out my own joy with the new tips and tricks I had learned.

I would have a voice and I would use it in public. That I would nod my head to my mistakes, but I would now express myself in a whole new language.

And I did.

Sometimes to outrage and sometimes to accolades, but every time with my chin held a little higher.

How could I not? To have someone in your life who holds you that important. That loves you that much. Is there anyone you love that much? Have you ever loved that much? Have you ever been able to go years and years and years and never fail against the responsibilities you have placed on yourself?

She has never wavered. I have never wavered either. My admiration for her has had my head looking up to the sky at her since the day I could crawl across the floor to her. And in this life I have been blessed with a few moments of being able to be the leader for her. They aren't often, but when I do, I emulate her gentle nature. Her giving nature. Her ability to give her all to someone and have the other walking away feeling as if they have accomplished something for themselves.

She was everything I wanted to be. She is everything I strive to be. She taught me to be independent. She taught me to be strong and when you feel your weakest, to dig jsut a bit deeper for another chunk of fight. But she gave me the one thing I wanted more than anything else in this world. She gave me a voice. My own voice. And she warned to to not waste it.

That some people fight their whole lives for something and when they do get it, they pack it away in a little velvet lined box and lock it away for safe keeping. That with freedom comes responsibility.

My sister.
Her strength and determination.
My voice.

This ones for you Becks.

I love you.

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