One of the first and best gifts my parents ever gave me was my big sister, or "See-uh-stuh" as I called her for the first few years - I don't remember when I switched to Brenda.
Sometimes I feel like I've let my daughter down by not providing her with a sister, even though she's got two great brothers. I just hate that she'll never know the special love that exists between sisters.
Brenda is eight years older than me, but we were always very close, even when eight years was a big age difference. We're still close - she meets me and my Lago friends in Port Aransas every year - but now it feels like we're the same age.
I know I was lucky...
She let me tag along with her and her friends, and sometimes even her boyfriends... She took me and my friends to the Strawberry Park swimming pool, Astroworld, and sometimes just riding around... When I was really little, she would take me to the pony rides in old Pasadena... We'd take the beagles for walks in Pasadena Memorial Park... She would take me to the zoo and act as a chaperone on my class field trips to the Houston museums... She'd let me hang out all day with her at the Mason Park swimming pool the summers she was a lifeguard... She came along on my Girl Scout camping trips as the lifeguard so we could swim... She took me to the emergency room when I was eight or nine and sprained my wrist (first she laughed, though, at finding me sitting in the toilet - someone had left the seat up and my skinny butt slipped right through - I sprained my wrist trying to catch myself, but I told everyone at school I slipped in the bathtub... do you blame me?)
What's that? You want me to share more memories? Well, let's see...
- I was thirteen and we visited Grandmother and Granddad at Boysville. We spent the day in San Antonio, eating Mexican food on the River Walk, cheesecake in the Hemisphere Needle, and visiting La Villita. I bought a copper bracelet...
- sitting at the kitchen table with Brenda and Mama, all of us reading, or talking, or giggling...
- San Antonio again with Brenda and Daddy at the State Bowling Tournament, drinking my first margarita at the bowling alley (it's okay, I was old enough), touring the missions...
- camping with her and her husband, Boyce, many, many times...
- visiting Grandmother together in Killeen and Belton, hitting the antique shops at Alum Creek on our way...
- calling her when I was reading the last chapter of Amityville Horror, too scared to finish it alone in my apartment; she let me spend the night with her and even slept with me (Boyce only grumbled about that a little bit)...
- reciting "Little Boy Blue" by Eugene Field in unison just to drive everyone crazy, but ending up with tears in our eyes...
- last year going out of her way to pick me up before heading to Port Aransas, getting lost and ending up on a military base, and meeting some "interesting" characters in the liquor store in Corpus Christi...
Just because we were close doesn't mean we always got along, especially when we shared a bedroom. And one day when I was about three and she was eleven, she had to babysit me. She turned off all the lights and closed the curtains so that the house was gloomy and dark. Somehow she got me so frightened that I made her safety-pin my shirt to hers.
The thing is, she did it - she safety-pinned us together. That is a wonderful big sister.
I was the baby. Spoiled, I'll admit it. I was a brat. (Proof? I hit one of Brenda's friends with a baton when I was three because she wouldn't let me play Monopoly. Don't worry, though. I've learned to play nice and use my words, not my baton... except as a last resort, of course. )
So I don't really hold it against my siblings for the occasional mean things they did; most of the time they were very kind, doting, and entertaining.
I'm not sure which category Brenda's "Spaz Attacks" fall into - mean or doting. Certainly entertaining, though. My brother Donnie and I loved/feared the "Spaz Attacks." Here's how it worked: We would chant ("Spaz Attack! Spaz Attack!") then run for our lives, because Brenda appeared from the hallway, transformed into a kind of hunchbacked monster, arms raised zombie-like, one foot dragging behind her, head cocked to the side.
Donnie and I would scream and climb onto the couch, pushing and shoving each other, with me usually getting pushed down. By then I'd be in tears. But I'd beg her to do it again in a few days.
(Donnie was five years older than me and thinking back on it now, he was probably working in cahoots with Brenda to scare me, but it worked and I loved it.)
Spaz Attacks aside, Brenda has always been a role model for me, and that continues even now; despite being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, her smile and laugh are still quick and contagious. She faces the problems and challenges, doesn't let them get her down or stop her from doing what she wants to do.
I've lived long enough, seen enough other sisters, to know that I was blessed with an extraordinary big sister. Thank you, Brenda...thank you, Mama and Daddy...and,of course, thank you, God.
And...HAPPY BIRTHDAY (yesterday), SEE-UH-STUH!!! I'm glad I got to spend it with you.