Brother and Sisters (From Shaddy's prompt)

I am the oldest of four children born in my family, each three years apart. My first sister died when she was three, of complications from kidney disease and pneumonia. She was a very sweet girl with sunshine in her smile. I remember Dad taking me to my first grade classroom several days later to tell my teacher why I hadn’t been there.

My second sister was born shortly thereafter. Her name was Robin, and it suited her because she was a picky eater, and “ate like a bird”. I have a vision of her at the dinner table long after everyone else had been dismissed, sitting there staring at the green beans on her plate that she had to finish before she could get down. She was six years younger than me, and as I remember, we always fought. It wasn’t until I left for college that we became close friends.

During her first year of college she became ill with an infection that localized in her kidneys, putting her into kidney failure, and requiring her to be on dialysis. A number of years later, we tested to see if I was a transplant match. I was, so that fall she received one of my kidneys. It is the one accomplishment of my life that I am the most proud of. The new kidney allowed her to be free of dialysis. Off and on, her body tried to reject the kidney, but she fought valiantly to retain it. One year to the date of the transplant, she had a massive stroke and died. I still admire her courage and miss her greatly. There is much more to tell of Robin’s journey, but it deserves its own story.

My brother came along nine years after me. Dad finally got a son to play ball with! What a great kid. He was always happy. My sister and I used to dress him up like a doll. We would put mom’s jewelry on him and he would walk around the house in earrings and necklaces, happy to be a part of the fun. He is now an Optometrist, with a beautiful wife and three kids. We are very close and talk weekly.

In Ann’s Beginning Writers Workshop, we were asked to write about things we remember and things we didn’t remember. I wrote that I didn’t remember a lot about my childhood years. It sparked me to call two of my childhood friends from the old neighborhood. We had maintained a “Christmas card” relationship of late. They came to lunch one day before Christmas, and we had a wonderful afternoon, talking about “remember when”. Those memories were there, they just needed prompting.

Copyright Parrot-Writes 2010