A Sister At Last

When I started school I had the meanest teacher that a shy child could have. I don't know if you remember, but in those days when you came into class you put your books in your desk, sat down in your seat and folded your hands on top of your desk and waited quietly for roll call. If only my teacher lived long enough to see how perfect her little class was by today's standards. I am sure she would have got into serious trouble on day one for her attempt at disciplining with the use of her ruler or yardstick. I made it through that year because of one little girl, Peggy who was as terrified as I was of that growl and frown that greeted us everyday. We became best friends that year. The thing that was even more strange is that my mom started working in her mom and dad's bookkeeping office. Our parents would go to the Elk's club and I would spend the night at her house and her sweet grandmother, Meme would keep us. We had our precious baby dolls and we would disappear into a world of make believe for hours or at least until our stomachs said it was snack time. We spent the night together every weekend for years. Our families would take beach vacations together even until we were in high school. Her parents even though not blood kin were my Aunt Edna and Uncle Glenn and my parents were her Aunt Dot and Uncle Howard. Our dads always loved to make us laugh and embarrass us at every opportunity. Mostly it was the bad dancing that would get us going. My dad had a problem of leaving his pants at the door when he came home from work and when my friends would come over I would always have to throw a newspaper over his shorts. We had a great time together since neither one of us had sisters. I had a brother named John, she had a brother named John, I had a brother named Rick, she had a brother named Rick, and then my mother gave me another brother when she turned 39. I was sure she was going to give me a baby sister, but Peggy helped to console me telling me he was only a baby and I should love him and maybe since he was a baby we could dress him up in some of our girl doll clothes and just pretend he was a girl. Life moved on and Peggy lost her mom to cancer. She was young when she passed away only in her 50s. It was a really sad time. Years later my dad got cancer and died when he was only 60 years old. You see my mom and Uncle Glenn were already great friends. Our families knew each other so well. He was there helping my mom through a terrible time. After a while they started dating and then they eventually got married. Our families became one, 2 Johns, 2 Ricks, Lynn, Peggy and Clay. We were all adults by then with families of our own, but God gave me something in all this, He gave me the sister I had always wanted. He gave me a sister who I already felt like was my sister. We shared a history that went back to being 6 year olds helping each other make it through an impossible school year. We shared our make believe doll world and as we turned into teenagers we shared the problems of puberty. We shared in our marriages and a divorce. We shared our children and grandchildren. We have never quarreled although we haven't always agreed with each other. She showed me how to walk with God and how much I am loved by him. I was given a sister, we did lose a parent in the process and we never would have wanted that to get to where we are now, but life happens, people get sick, people, good people die. I think my dad and her mom would have wanted us to reach out to each other in our grief and we did and so did our remaining parents. God can take an impossible situation and bring good from it and me and my precious sister are proof of that.