Here comes the bride

    When I was born, my sister was elated to have a sister.  She already had three brothers at the time and a baby girl was a nice surprise.  She was eleven at the time and I think she thought she was my mother because from that time forward, she told me what to do. 

   We were always close and shared a bedroom at one time.  When she was dating I use to sit at the bedroom window and listen to her and her boyfriend talk and laugh.  I was jealous of her boyfriends for spending so much time with her.  When one day she announced she was going to get married I got very upset. 

    That year on my birthday she gave me a beautiful bride doll.  She was all lace with curly blonde hair and blue eyes.  I loved her so much.  Recently while cleaning out a closet I came across her.  Her white gown had faded to a soft ecru, her face needed cleaning and her bridal clothes needed a good washing.  I bathed her, washed her hair and clothes and dressed her again.  She looked just as beautiful as the first day I got her.  I never gave her a name.  I dreamed that one day I would be like her and wear a beautiful lacy dress.

    The week before my sister got married I cried every day.  I thought I was losing my sister forever.  She kept telling me she wasn't going to live that far away, but I knew I wouldn't see her every day.  She was moving to the "big city."

      By the time my sister married our family had added another boy.  He became my playmate and I believed I was his mother.  I read to him and played with him, but he wasn't like a sister.

  My sister and I are still close.  We talk on the phone and try to get together for lunch a couple of times a year.  We live one hundred miles apart so it isn't easy to get together that often.  I keep the bride doll on a chair in my hallway so that I can see her every day and remind me how much my sister loves me and that really we are never very far apart in spirit.  Bye.