My sister once told me, “I never wanted to do any of those things.  Mom pushed me all the way.  She brought me from audition to audition.  She crafted me into a thespian and modeling classes.  YOU were the lucky one she saw as a free spirit who’d rather make mud pies than comb her hair.   You played sports and flipped somersaults in the air during all your years of gymnastics and got away with anything.  Everything was always about her.   Even when I was pregnant with Karenna she said, ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me.’  I never wanted any of what she made me do.”

“And I always thought she did it because YOU were the pretty one, the talented one.”

“You fought with her after The Annie Look Alike contest.”

“She gave me a perm! I was five!”

“She dragged me to New York every weekend on auditions and put my headshot on the refrigerator.”

“Yeah. How do you think that made your tomboy little sister feel?”

“And how do you think it made me feel when you and Dad left every Saturday morning for basketball or soccer?”

“This is a stupid conversation,” already it was making my skin itch in places I would never be able to scratch, “how can people vaporize for years and make you realize the person you thought they were all your life never existed?”

“I love you.”

“……”

“I’ve known you far longer than you ever let me.”

This conversation was three days before we ran a marathon together.

The funny thing about siblings is no matter how old we are we’re still 14 when we are together.  I miss my sister more than a simple belief like I will be able to breathing through a sinus infection.  Family is everything, I can’t choose them….but I love them and that IS what I give.