To my Baby Sister

Today my baby sister turns 28. Twenty-eight. Such a tender young age! Wish I were 28 again!

 

Perhaps if we had known more Abigails before she was born, my dad would have decided against the name. Now I hear someone who has a child named Abigail and I say, “Poor you.” And they look at me like, “How did you know?” Firebrand, right? Yeah. 

 

And if we had known that we would end up calling her “Charlie”, perhaps we would have just named her that anyway.

 

Don’t ask. It started as a family joke. And stuck.

 

To be honest, I don’t recall a lot about the time Abby was born. Except that Dad didn’t turn off his alarm clock before he left for the hospital. At 5:30 I woke up (knowing they were gone and Mrs. Mann was downstairs on the couch), realized it wasn’t going to go off by itself, and stumbled across the hall to turn it off. At least I hoped I had actually gotten it off. Dad used those old wind up things. But it didn’t go off again, so I got a couple of more hours of sleep.

 

I also remember that we had just had a bout of the chicken pox in our house. Since Katey, Daniel, Sally and I had all had them, it was Grace’s turn. And Jenny’s. But we’ve never been sure Jenny actually had them. She had a few itchy spots, but it was August. They could have just been bug bites. Still, we couldn’t let her go into the hospital. (Although maybe if we had known about the miraculous virus catchers known as masks…but it would be another 27 years before that great discovery. I know, sarcasm knows no bounds.) So, Katey and I waited with Jenny in the car while everyone else went in. Then Dad let Katey and I go in by ourselves.I was 13 years old. Katey was almost 11. We got up to the room okay, but I got totally turned around coming down and ended up in a elevator that went down to staff areas. Thankfully no one caught us and the one hallway led right to the entrance we had come in.

 

Fitbits had yet to be discovered (although they would be before masks), but I’m pretty sure my heart was racing.

 

I suppose by the time Abby came around, another sister was just another sister. I mean, there were now six of us girls. I don’t remember a lot of novel things about her as a toddler, except how she would come up to you, book in hand, turn around, and back up into your lap. Then you had no choice but to read to her. Right? Apparently not, and I read to Abby aloud for years. Sure, she struggled to learn to read, but I think she really just didn’t want to. Why should she? Everyone read to her. I enjoyed it.

 

 With Abby, none of us apparently had a lot of choices. For one, she let us know exactly what we should be doing, when, how, and where. The why was always allusive, but she never cared. If you were given her as a partner to do chores with, you soon realized you were doing the chore alone and she had disappeared. I don’t know how she did it, but she had that art mastered. She could also pick your pockets. 

 

She wanted to be an attorney. I think we were pretty sure she was headed in a different direction.

 

To this day, Abby is still the best person in the room to pick on. She states every opinion she has emphatically and will argue you to the death even if she realizes she’s wrong. All you have to do is take the board game from the box, and she’s on fire to run you over in her race to win. She doesn’t even have to know how to play the game. She’s easy to rile and Caleb teases her until she’s red in the face. But she’s tough. She’s good at what she does, and she’s not afraid to fight the right fight even if she knows she’ll loose. She’s also got a really cute kid. 

 

I’m not sure God gave me my baby sister because I needed the direction she thought I did, but I’m glad He gave her to us anyhow. I have a feeling having her as a sister has somewhat prepared me for having Ellyson as a daughter…