SISTERS: ON MARY

Photo: Merry Mary

Chocolate eyes and warm sable hair (not as dark as Sandi's, not as light at Lila's) she makes you want to sing. She is made up of brown eyes, and music, and 1967, which makes her my Brown Eyed Girl. She is also my storyteller, and she writes with the same smooth, honeyed "voice" that she uses to spin her intriguing tales aloud. I am mesmerized by the images she conjures up right before my face, in awe of her magic. I think she's a witch in the best of ways, a wordy witch!

I haven't heard an angel sing (or even a lark or canary) but I bet she sings as well or better than they do, for this is also her power. It is as though she graduated from Hogwarts with a major in storytelling and a minor in singing, though that could easily go the other way around.

She uses her witchy ways on babes, children, animals, seniors with a touch of dementia, and anyone like me, but her magic is good and she does not harm or in any way take advantage of those that fall under her spell. 

She has enriched my life with more... more stories... more songs... more flavors... more ideas... more plans... more happiness.

She brought me tea parties, sing alongs, whispered ghost stories, goofy limericks, and laughter. She multiplied my joy and divided my cares. 

I watch with pride and delight as she learns and grows, the little sister I never had. We believe we can be family -- forevermore. 

When I need a friend, a hand, a shoulder, a listening ear, or some good advice, I don't have to look any further than wherever she is standing.

She has helped me keep my head up and my eyes on the good in this world. She has the patience of a saint and the humor of a sinner. It is hard, almost impossible, to be sad when she is around. 

She is morbidly afraid of spiders, so I carry them all away from her before she sees them. If I can't catch them I squish them, and there is almost no one else I would squish a spider for, but that's what big sisters do.

She is chai tea in a pretty cup, warming my hands and my heart. She is an adventure with the windows down on a warm evening, getting lost on the back roads without a care. She's a cold ice cream cone when it's too hot to breathe. She is singing to the top of my lungs and laughing until my side hurts. She is a pseudo nostalgia that can only come from saying, "You did?! Me too!" forty 'leven times since we met. She is "I love that movie!" and "I read that book! and " I want to go there!" She is a comfortable past and a wondrous future that we hope to share together as sisters -- forevermore.

My Gorgeous Sister