A Donut...

It's Christmas morning, I run downstairs and I see it. Our very own kitchen set. Every Santa we have visited, every person who has asked my sister has given them the same answer.

What do you want for Christmas little girl?

A Donut...

There, in the refrigerator, two large Texas donuts. One for her, one for me. Our entire present seems based on her one request. Am I happy that we got a kitchen set, or sad because it seems as if she requested it?

Even now, I don't know the answer to that. I find it odd that my memory remembers that it was "her" present, even though it had both of our names on it. Her donut, her kitchen.

The Scar...

My elbow bears a scar. A scar I remember only briefly acquiring but that still remains with me to this day. I'm outside, it is warm, I'm riding a big wheel. Suddenly it over turns. A crack in the sidewalk, a lean too far to the right, I'm unsure but my arm hurts. I look down and it is bleeding.

The blood is long since gone. The scar... yup... just checked, still there...

Hospital Visit

We walk down a long hallway and I see her. There in a room sitting up in bed. The memory is fuzzy but I can definitely tell that it is my mother, I look to my right and my dad is walking next to me carrying my sister.

This is all I remember, a black and white image of my mom sitting in a hospital bed. It was several years later when I put two and two together enough to realize that this was when she had her hysterectomy. The one, and only, time my mother has been in the hospital for herself since my having my sister.

Come to think of it, the one and only time I remember my mom going to the doctor ever for anything other than a routine exam.

Showering

I'm three perhaps four years old. I'm in the shower with my dad. He wants me to wash my own hair. I won't. I don't want to, don't think I can. I know I'm in trouble, I remember the taste of the bar of soap he put in my mouth.

I don't know why I was still in the shower with him at this age. Looking back it seems very strange to me but I don't remember feeling uncomfortable at the time. Just angry that I had to wash my own hair.

The Butterfly

We were in the store, trying on clothes. The plastic collar off of a collared shirt, the plastic clips that hold it together. I had them all, sitting in front of me on the dressing room floor. Nothing but time on my hands as I started hooking them together in an effort to form some sort of coherent shape.

Next thing I knew it was done. A butterfly. Crude and not quite in shape but my creation just the same. I carried that thing all over with me. I have no recollection of how long I had it, all I remember is how I lost it.

I took it to the baby sitters. I was showing it off to the kids there and somehow it got set on a shelf and I forgot it. Went home without my precious creation and by the time I got there the next day it was gone. One of the younger kids had found it and pulled it apart.

The next time we were at the store I tried to get the parts to make another one but was never able to find just the right stuff to come together in just the right way.

Sisterly Love

There is a story from my past that I do not remember but have been told over and over so many times that it is ingrained into my memory almost as if it was my own.

As the story has been told I was around three - four years old. My sister was still in a crib. Every morning my mom would hear a large thud. That would be the crib railing falling. Then a few seconds after that she would hear another thud. That would be my sister falling on top of me as I fell backwards pulling her out.

Then a few seconds later giggles and the shuffling sound of footie pajamas going down the stairs.

I like to hold on to this memory. The fact that before we became enemies we were friends. The best of friends.

Somewhere in the middle we lost that. We were in competition, for what, I'm still not sure. And then I went to college and she went to college. I got married, she got married and now, all of the sudden we are back a little closer to the beginning. Perhaps not the best of friends but no longer sworn enemies. Two people who have come full circle back to the place where we know we are sisters and are grateful for that.