Sister has always been a little frail, but in the end one of my best friends.

Sister has always been the person that if one in a thousand, or million has it she does.  She was allergic to milk as a baby, back then it was much rarer than it is now.  We didn't have formula then just goats milk, cows milk, they didn't promote breast milk at that time, they had to find that it was the best and convince us to do it again in the 70's and 80's. We had canned milk, maybe the industry had just started getting formula's, but we canned and powdered milk and she threw all her bottles up, the doctor said she is getting some of it so just keep giving it to her, how times have changed. She was a tiny little thing, my mom really likes tiny little things. As children she was a bit of a tattle tale, but that is sort of how my mom watched so many of us.  It is like having another set of eyes, so tattling was promoted and she was pretty good at it. We have three brothers between us by birth, one was a twin to my brother Silver, he lived 9 hours but due to complications from a fall my mom had about 3 weeks before the twins were born he wasn't getting feed right and though he fought he died.  My mom has remarkable photos of the twins holding hands in the incubator at birth. Eleven months after the twins my brother Red was born, then 16 months later Sister was born.  She was a tiny little angel, and my Sister. We would have probably been closer growing up but the 3 and 1/2 years and the boys between us made us pretty adversarial growing up. 

Sister had a baby she carried as a really little child, she would roll fuss balls from the lent on it's little belly.  When she was 2ish, we were out in the garden, she liked to pick the tomatoes off the plants and take bites out of them, she didn't actually like to eat the tomatoes just to take a bite out, done and on to the next one.  She was playing at this when she came upon the pitch fork, she pulled it out of the ground and stuck it back in right threw her two feet. My brother Silver, to this days, will tell you he was in a tree and threw the pitch fork and it went into her feet. He was only 4, there was no tree by the garden and he was not Robin Hood with his aim.  She stabbed the pitch fork threw her feet all by herself. When I was 9 and 3/4 my mom was pregnant with what turned out to be my sister, Little sister, and I was to make dinner.  I was trying my best, I had potatoes in my grandma Thelma's pressure cooker pan, I was cooking deer meat and I was trying to make jello, for the first time.  Sister, who was just 7 always got to make jello, I am sure now it was the only thing she probably could make really at 7 put I was always jealous.  I got to make it and she was not to interfere. She didn't she sat on the counter next to me as I cooked.  I had the water boiling, in our house we boiled our jello, we didn't like the crust it can have if you just put boiling water in it.  I put the jello in the water, and went to the drawer to get a spoon.  Sister said, "it is boiling up" I was trying to get the spoon,  She said "it is boiling over" I opened the drawer grabbed the spoon and turned around. She said, "it is boiling down the stove'' I ran back and said, "why didn't you take it off" She said, "You wanted to do it by yourself, so I couldn't help".  My grandmothers pan started to smell and the potatoes were so burned that the pan had burnt threw and was stuck to the burner.  I couldn't multi task, I could not make dinner and fight with my sister all at once at nine and 3/4 but I had tried.  Mom was not happy with me, and recounted the burnt potato episode for years to come, I just remembered that the jello had boiled over and Sister hadn't helped me.

When I was eighteen, I had gone to the fair and hadn't come home until 3 in the morning.  My mom and dad were so mad I got the last spanking I ever got. I had a bruise that started at my hip and went down past my knee. It was big and black.  The next night Sister didn't come home until after 3 in the morning. She didn't even get in trouble, I don't really recall where were either one of us were either night, it was fair time and we were teenagers.  Sister did feel bad at the difference in our circumstances and the results of our punishments, every night for the next week she would see the bruise, when we went to bed, and she would be very loving and nice to me. You can bet I made sure she saw it, it was nice to have her being nice to me.  As adults, my mom tried to fix her adult children problems alot.  She wanted to control our lives long after she should have just let us be adults.  When I was 29 sister and I had the last fight we ever had, I don't know what started it, but as we both lived next door to each other and mom, it was great orchestrated by my mom.  My mom, in the end tried to force us to make up, after she had gotten us fighting in the first place.  Sister and I had the longest, and first real talk in our lives. Each of us spoke of our side of our relationship and explained our plight in life as we saw it.  We bonded for the first time, and forever, we have not fought with one another for 32 years now.  If their is a family dispute we are always on each others side, we came up together in the family, we are each others sisters, yes we both have 6 others sisters but we grew up together in a way the others don't and never will understand.

Sister has had many surgeries in her life, she had gallbladder surgery and has the worst scar I have ever seen, but never had a gallbladder.  She now has so much scar tissue that surgery is an only if she would die without it possibility.  She has ulcerated colitis, she has always had low blood pressure, dangerously so, she in allergic to many foods, she had been passing out for no apparent reason for years.  About a year ago she had a heart panel, and they found she had been born with a hole in her heart.  The doctor told her at the time that 96% of the people he fixed the hole in their heart never had another bit of trouble, well that is to say Sister would have problems.  She was so much better after her heart was fixed. She breathed normally for the first time in her life, no more COPD, no more low blood pressure and was no longer whitish tinged, she had nice pink coloring.  The changes were immediate, she had a whole new lease on life.  Well yesterday she came to tell us that she is passing out again. She has gone to the doctor and has an appointment on the 7th with the specialist, they think that like 4% of people who have the hole fixed it is reopened.  The doctor had told her at the time hers had been the biggest one he had ever fixed.  She is back to being frail, I do hope and pray he can fix it.  I need my sister and I liked her best when she was at her healthiest, as she was at happiest. ............. tomorrow.