My brother was trouble early, a crooked mile that never straightened. Perhaps that is why my sister was more the first child; hers never was a middle road.
I was her first charge, the precedent which so many other fortunates followed. I learned to read before kindergarten and understood fractions from her smart white nub of chalk.
She explained kneesocks when mom still wore anklets; she let me play with her Beatles records, and trusted me with her horse collection. She explained girl things I didn�t learn from mom and, later, when she learned to play the guitar we sang songs together for our parents� company.
She did all things first, and at two and a half years behind I, the youngest child, had a perfect teacher.
Thus time passed, and I traversed my rich inner life into adolescence.
Michigan.
The snowbound years were horrid as only a thirteen year old can know. Through no fault of mine, my mother no longer understood me and had inexplicably become embarrassing.
My father was at work, or busy ruining his career with drink.
My overachieving, perfect sister had somehow joined forces with all those adults who felt I was out of whack. Her bed was always made; her grades were always good. Her insults stung when we clashed, and no one cared that my so-called best friend got the boyfriend I wanted made fun of my clothes pulled posters down from my room and once we started school left this geek for cooler crowds.
I would lie awake at night and fantasize about Spock. I would imagine that he�d found his feelings and cried for love of me.
One day after a particularly bad argument I was sitting in the tv room and my sister was sewing. Quietly she said, I�m sorry for what I said earlier. I didn�t mean it.
My father never said, I�m sorry I�m a drunk. My best friend never said, I�m sorry I made you a pariah.
But my sister did all things first, and it was she who reached out her hand and bridged the rift.
I took it.
Now we are middle aged and the two and a half years between us are a blink.
She is the closest thing to my skin without being skin, the closest thing to confession outside of a church.
There is very little room for maybe in her life. First child by default, she knows what she wants and doesn�t feel the need to postpone joy.
She still takes in charges; a Polish boy looking for a new life in the States; a young woman waiting for a kidney transplant; a friend between jobs and ports of sanity; and, more than once, me.
Her life as caregiver began at a chalkboard in Virginia and continued through nursing school and my mother�s bedside. It took her to Africa where she�s helped save lives.
It takes her every weekend to scrubbing kennels so that the homeless will present well to people wanting pets.
She�s still there with the chalk when I need clarification; she feeds me endless dinners and opens the door and the washing machine at all times. She advocates, aids and abets my extroardinarily bizarre lifestyle although in some ways we couldn�t be more different:
One the rock, practical, stable and grounded, one the river, restless, winding and wild, together we balance the Universe and keep the stars from flying off their courses.
Though I am at an open-handed loss to begin to know how to repay this love,
when she comes to a gig and looks at me with that look and says, I can�t believe you�re my sister, all I can think is, I can�t believe you�re mine.
