To say having siblings is interesting, wonderful, and memorable is, to sum up, my life with two siblings. Our family consisted of three girls. Kathy was the oldest, I was the middle child and Judy is my younger sister. We are four and five years apart. First of all my older sister, Kathy was my idol. She was the oldest of us three, the firstborn to our family, the first grandchild, first niece, and the first most wonderful thing that happened in our family. That didn’t leave a lot of room for us that followed. Kathy was a fashion statement, to say the least. She was four years older than me and I tried desperately to be just like her. I am afraid I failed miserably. She actually didn’t spend much time doing things with me until she went on to St. Mary’s Nursing School in Madison.
I spent a week with her there and was in awe of the whole adventure. Kathy and I, I guess you could say had a love, hate relationship. You see she could do no wrong in my parent’s eyes. She would love to argue with me using big words to make me feel inferior. Sibling rivalry at its max. To counteract this put down as I saw it, I used every foul, awful word that I could come up with. This would put her in her place. She was meticulous about her looks.
When she went to church I swear she went so she could show off her new outfits. This included a beautiful outfit including gloves, very high heels, and a big picture hat. She had an attitude, was pretty, smart, and loved to flaunt that. When she turned ill with M.S. at the age of 19 and passed away at age 26 I forgave her for all her idiosyncrasies and was glad she had a spunky, quirky attitude and enjoyed her life to the fullest since her life was cut so short.
Then, on to my younger sister. She is a total trip. She is smart, caring, and a very good friend. She and I actually did a lot more things together than I did with my older sister. After my older sister decided she warranted a bedroom of her own, I got to share a bedroom with Judy, much to her dismay. We did a lot of fun things together. We played with paper dolls, lots of play-acting such as pretending that she was Marilyn Monroe and I was Jane Russell. We rode horses on my parent’s furniture. We had one particular chair that we actually set up with a rope and pretended to ride all around the world. Can you believe my Mom allowed such a thing? We actually set up our parent’s basement into a pretend apartment, dividing it into rooms and playing house. We also did a lot of outside events including all the neighborhood kids. When I got older and married she was my sidekick when it came to shopping, decorating, and helping me set up housekeeping. She was always there for me. She was a gullible sort and I have always loved to tease her. It is to be noted that when we were much younger I would stick her with pins just to see her reaction. I know this sounds horrible, but it is my reality.
One time we were in our bedroom and I shared with Judy that when I was born my mom went to visit my grandma and grandpa in Black Earth. My dad was in the service at that time. They put me in a dresser drawer to sleep. Well, I failed (might I say here that this was on purpose) to share with Judy that they actually took the drawer out of the dresser. She proceeded to sit in the drawer after making a little bed in there and, you guessed it, the whole big dresser that also had a large fishbowl on top of it which actually had fish AND WATER, proceeded to tip over. After hearing the unbelievable crash upstairs my dad made it up there in I would guess three steps. As I say, she was so gullible and still is fun to tease. (By the way, she was not hurt, but I’m sure my bottom didn’t feel too great.) Now, as an adult, I have to alter my teasing because she takes it way too seriously. This is really dampening my creativity and I feel my fun.
It should be noted that I took my position in my family very seriously. You know, “The middle child syndrome”. I did a very good job of being the family’s, “pain in the ass!!!”
I like to joke, but it is in reality that Kathy was the queen, Judy the princess, and I, the frog.
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