The tender side of family

An older sister is a friend and defender - a listener, conspirator, a counsellor and a sharer of delights.  And sorrows too.  ~Pam Brown

I am not "the eldest" among my siblings.  That office goes to my sister.  She always kept me in the dark, intentionally, when we grew up.  She would play board games and cards with her friends and cousins her age.  If I dared to play with them, my sister would get them all to gang up on me and put me out of the game the fastest so that they could enjoy themselves and I had to leave.  Yep, that's what sisters were for.

But, later in life, after I matured as a little brother, my sister actually listened to me.  I remember having more than one conversation with her about faith matters.  She listened kindly to all my questions or explorations, threw a few questions at me to make sure that I had thought through matters thoroughly, then would just accept me regardless of the strangeness of what I might have just said.

But the thing I remember most is her absolute kindness and tenderness upon hearing of  the illness of my son.  She was right there with me through the whole 13-month ordeal, making sure that emotions did not overtake me.  She should go to heaven just for that one pocket of time when she stood beside me.  

And in some future day, when parents are watching their posterity from another realm, she will be the most direct link to my parents because she soaked in their essences equally well before I was ever around.  To my sister.  (Clink of glasses.)