#tbt - sister sister

Today was a sad day because I had to say goodbye to my sister Lauren as she packed up to fly north for the winter.

I tried unsuccessfully to convince her to simply transfer down here and start going to UH.  She cut me off before I could explain that she could crash here.  The walk in closet is already occupied by Katelyn but I was pretty sure Lauren would be comfortable sleeping on the couch.  She could fall asleep to the soothing sounds of any of the five TV stations we receive.  We can't offer much in the way of social attractions but last night Dave and I played a pretty rousing game of Scrabble in which, at the end of the game, I flung the game board into the air, laughing hysterically as the little wooden pieces rained back down on us.  As I was cleaning Kate's toys this afternoon, I was almost certain I would find a lettered tile or two.

My family is historically bad at goodbyes.  We take it beyond a normal level of tearful sadness.  I think it's an anxiety thing.  The whole last day gets turned into a dismal "party" that we are trying to enjoy.  Each hour grows weepier than the last as the number of times the phrase, "This is just so sad" increases.  We really don't like saying goodbye.

Sure enough, as we stood around in my kitchen next to the front door, things got even more pathetic.  Saying goodbye in my family is like trying to remove a stubborn bandaid.  We each have our own method of choice.  When Jack went into the MTC and we knew we weren't going to see him for the next two years, he chose the "rip it off quickly" approach.  When the time came, we each got one quick hug and he was gone.  My goodbyes always seem to be drawn out.  I was the kid who was convinced that the easiest way to remove a bandaid was to slowly and painfully pull on the adhesive, bit by bit until you got to the end.

Kate, of course, was running around completely oblivious.  She kept trying to goad a tearful Aunt Lauren into another game of chase.  She was blissfully unaware and had no concept of a longer term goodbye.  All she knew was that Aunt Lauren was asking for three times as many hugs and kisses as usual.  When Aunt Lauren finally did walk out the door, I'm sure Katelyn's innocent toddler mind was expecting her to walk right back in tomorrow morning to go swimming with us.  Somehow, her complete ignorance of time and her inability to understand missing someone made the situation even more sad.

So forgive me if I'm a bit melancholy tonight.  It seems fitting to devote this Throwback Thursday to sister memories.

My first memory of Lauren was before she was even born.  I was five years old when my parents found out she was a girl.  I was so excited and imagine playing dress up and Barbie dolls with this new "baby" in just a few months.  Imagine my surprise when all the baby did was sleep.

When she finally did get old enough to play Barbies with me, my parents bought us a Barbie Fold n Fun house that I'm sure they deeply regretted every time we asked them to set it up.

At some point in our childhood, it was decided that we were going to share a bedroom.  This made for some epic late night screaming matches.  We slept on a blue metal bunkbed and I somehow was assigned the top bunk.  (To this day, Lauren claims that she falls out of bed frequently.)  Lauren would put her feet up on my mattress and kick me in the back for sport.  Sometimes I would laugh about it and think it was funny and sometimes I would be annoyed.  Sisters can be loose cannons like that.  The bed was pushed up in the corner of the room against one of the windows.  Once Lauren very quietly and very sneakily climbed up the side of the bed so that she was standing on the window sill and her face was right above mine.  There have been few times in my entire life when I have been that badly startled.  We laugh about it to this day.

When I was sixteen, I broke up with my first boyfriend.  I found out that he had lied to me so that he could secretly hang out with some other girl behind my back.  It was one week before the Homecoming Dance so I had no date.  It was very dramatic.  I remember sitting with my mom in the upstairs loft of our old house crying my teenage eyes out when I heard little ten year old sniffles and realized that Lauren was crying just as hard as I was.  I had no idea why she was crying because she hadn't been dumped.  I realize now that it was one of those rare times when you get to witness someone who loves you so much that they experience your pain and feel sad just because you are.

Years later, when I actually experienced a more serious and life altering break up, Lauren was crying alongside me with a fierce loyalty I have rarely ever seen anywhere else.

One time, we were watching TV and the most stupid show came on with some joke about two women who brought in the same coffee mug and kept yelling, "Coffee twins!"  As if it was some weird sisters dog whistle, we both picked up on some crazy strain of humor that no one else in the room could detect and we laughed, as my mom would say, like hyenas for days.  We still find humor in some of the same things that almost no one else laughs about and we have a nearly identical sister chuckle so that, when we really get cracking up about something, it sounds like one person laughing in stereo rather than two goofy girls.

Of all the people I told about the impending arrival of Baby Kate, Lauren's was the most extreme.  She immediate burst into tears and not the quiet one-tear-rolling-slowly-down-your-check kind either.  She nearly collapsed into a puddle of sobs and it was then that I knew that Aunt Lauren and Katelyn would always have a special bond.

I think that's what made Lauren saying goodbye to Katelyn the saddest part about today.  I am forced to remind myself to keep this in perspective.  She is going to BYU for four months, not crossing the Pacific on a sailboat, not boarding a shuttle for a moon landing, and not being exiled to Elba.  It has just been nice having her around.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a sister.  No one but me is lucky enough to have one as good as Lauren.