I can distinctly remember standing there, with one hand twirling the back of my hair, and the other hand on my hip. I stood there and shook my head, as I looked on. I can remember thinking… “Heck. I KNOW I can drive that thing better than that.”
I was probably about six.
You see… it had happened again. For at least the 20th time, my sister had driven my brother’s go-cart into a large black iron pole, in our back yard, in the city of Dayton. I am pretty sure you could here that “clunk” all the way to Oakwood.
She frequently did these sorts of things. We would go sledding at Triangle Park, and always go down “Suicide Hill”. I was never allowed to drive my own sled. I stood at the top of the hill, I think with my brother Ed… and another sister’s boyfriend who looked just like Art Garfunkel. Anyway… away Julie went, down the hill. And as she was really gaining steam, she started veering right toward a lone huge tree on the hill. Like a magnet, she went right into that thing. I am pretty sure it knocked her out cold.
I can remember thinking… “Well, hold the mustard Louie, I think Julie is dead.”
She seemed to have the Klutz Chromosome. I have it too… but she might win the prize between us. I walk into walls and such. Drop bricks on my feet. Those sorts of things. But her follies are epic.
It is kind of funny though. We are probably the two clumsiest people in the family, but we are the only two college athletes. Go figure. We also share the silly-bug when we are together. Like goofy as can be….. to the point… people have stopped and stared.
At any rate, today is her birthday, (by the time you read this). I am the youngest of seven kids. She is number six… just four years older than I.
She is one of the people I am most thankful for in my life. I am thankful for a whole LOT of people in my life. I am blessed this way. But there are some wonder-souls in life, who touch your heart… who make your life better… who let you know, at just those right moments, that life is this moment and none other. They are golden.
So Happy Birthday to her. I am so glad for the day she was born.
And Happy Birthday to all you beautiful people in life, who have touched my spirit. Those of you who make this world a better place… because you are in it. Because you, are you.
We are what we believe we are.
— C. S. Lewis
All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They.
— Rudyard Kipling
Holy Moley those were some cool hooded jackets we were wearin! This is what I think I know about (repeatedly) running the go-cart into the black pole. Some say one cannot exist w/out the other: age and youth, fullness and emptiness, summer and winter, Abbott and Costello. Superb eye-hand coordination and extreme slapstick klutziness. The go-cart and the black pole. Heads that shake “yes” and heads that shake in disbelief. I’m still learning to slow down around the curves. And I’m still learning how amazing you are, little sister. Thank you for bein you.