Wake Up Call

Yesterday I called my sister on my way home from work like I normally do every afternoon.  Our chats on the cell phone help keep me awake on my long drive through the forest where there is no traffic to keep me focused and only bright sunshine warming my face and making my eyelids exceedingly droopy.  So I guess you could say she is my lifeline---keeping me afloat when I'd rather drown in the pool of late afternoon slumber land.  I know all about the dangers of using a cell phone while driving, but in this case, it is a necessity to keep me awake, so don't waste your time telling me how dangerous it is.

My phone conversation with my "little big sister", my nickname for my petite older sister, was truly a wake-up call yesterday. Perhaps for her as well as for me. When I asked her what she was up to, as I customarily do, she replied that she had just gotten out of the shower and she was hurting.  "Hurting where?" I asked. "In my chest, shoulders, and kind of burning-tingling down my left arm," was her startling response.  I then asked her how soon her husband would be home, and she said he was walking through the door as we spoke.  I said, "Then you need to tell him what's going on and you need to get to the hospital and get checked."

I could tell by the breaks in her voice that her pain was not exaggerated and that she was frightened.  Her fear became my fear. I called her back when I reached my house, and she was still deliberating over whether or not to go to the hospital. I told her to stop thinking about it and get going. I said, "You've got Medicare, so you don't have to worry about the cost. Just go! Better to be safe than sorry."  I also told her that if our mother or father were alive, they would tell her the same thing.

This tea party was much later in life obviously...but we STILL love
to have a tea party any chance we get.  This one was for my birthday
a few years ago, using our Mother's (Grandmother's) Haviland China that
we inherited and divided between ourselves so we each could have the same
amount of plates and cups and saucers.

So apparently they left for the hospital soon after, as I couldn't reach her at home when I called back later.  I spent an anxious evening waiting for a phone call telling me what her condition was.  During that time I prayed, I paced back and forth in my front yard while I watered my flowers and trees, I talked to God out loud (where no one else but the birds and lizards could hear me), and I analyzed my feelings.

I am not usually an anxious, worrisome person.  I know how to take my concerns to the Lord in prayer.  But, this is my sister!  My "little BIG sister!"  The one who helped look after me when I was just a little girl following her around, pestering her and probably bothering her a whole bunch.  She is the one who had tea parties with me and our dollies when we were tiny little girls on the farm.

My sister Doris, her beautiful bride doll, and me with my baby doll. Note the
matching dresses, made especially for us by our mother for Christmas.

She is the one who went with me out in the cold to the scary, stinky outhouse we had on our farm.  (She's also the one who left me in there alone one day and I couldn't get the door open and had to start pounding and screaming to get someone's attention that I was stuck in the outhouse alone....but that's another story! ) 

My sister is the one who taught me about what to do when puberty came along and scared me half to death.
 She is the one who taught me how to sew and even fixed my sewing catastrophes when I couldn't figure out how to get that zipper in straight, or make that button-hole attachment work right...or even how to thread the bobbin and needle over and over again when I had the tension too tight.  (Seamstresses will understand this...this is why I never have really liked sewing all that much...and my sister is such a natural!)

Yeah, she's my BIG sister, even if she IS much smaller than me.   (I'm the "BIG LITTLE sister").  We've had our moments...spats you might call them.  I think we even pulled each other's hair a few times and did a lot of screaming at each other when it seemed like the only thing to do.  But when all was said and done, we still loved each other.  We still love each other.  Since our Mama and Daddy both went to heaven we've clung to each other like sisters do. We share the same kind of DNA...we think alike,

Yeah, we think alike...both stuck out our tongues at the same time at a
sneaky photographer!  (Taking a walk with our Daddy)

we talk alike, sometimes we even dress alike. (and we don't ever plan it that way...it just happens).

 Sisters dressed alike for my son's wedding rehearsal party...totally unplanned
shown here together with our parents on either side of us.

 We've even started to look alike, even though I was always much taller, red-headed and freckled, and my sister has always been petite, brunette, and can actually tan without freckles!  We've blended somewhere in the middle...our genetic pool has merged somehow.

Even though we have two older brothers, and I love them dearly too, I was suddenly struck with the thought last night that my sister is my closest flesh and blood link to our shared heritage...the bloodline to our parents...we have so many shared memories of our childhood...so many treasures, not just tangible treasures, but inherent gifts that were handed down to us from our ancestors...things that we just know because that's how we were brought up....things that we do because that's how our mother or daddy taught us.  No one else on earth understands those things like we do.  (No one else on earth understands why we do things like we do).  We do have some differences, but we have a lot more similarities than differences. Even our brothers don't quite get it sometimes...

The good news is, so far today they haven't found anything wrong with my sister.  Her heart seems to be beating strong and healthy.  But this was a wake-up call.  A call for me to recognize how much I love my "little big sister", and how much she means to me.  Sometimes we may get exasperated with each other and not totally agree with the way we do things...but when all is said and done...we are family. We need each other. I hope to keep my "little big sister" around for a long time. She reminds me of our Mama AND our Daddy. She is a link to our past and our future.

If there is a lesson in this for us, it would be to cherish your family, whether they be near or far, parent, sibling, spouse, or child.  We were lucky (blessed) this time that it was just a "wake up call".  The next time we may not be so fortunate.  Tell your loved ones that you love them while there is time. Don't wait until something bad happens and then wish you'd told them.

I love you, Sis.  Yeah, I love you too, brothers.  Believe me, I want to keep all of you around just as long as I can.  I'm the baby of the family, and I don't like being left "alone."