i should be asleep right now...

but i just had to get this on paper, and once i did that, i figured i would share it with you.
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2/6/08

i think the downfall of the relationship between my sister and me must have started the day i was born. till then, my sister was an only child to older, wealthy parents whose concept of love was to throw money at problems and tantrums until they went away. but then i came into the picture, and things just went downhill from there.
my most vivid, and telling story of my sister's "love" for me is captured in time, forever, in a scar on my knee. the story goes like this:

we were out riding bikes with dad one afternoon on a weekend. since we lived in a small town, and
our neighborhood was fairly small, it wasn't odd to see dogs without leases or collars roaming the streets.
however, on this day, as we were riding along, we came upon a small pack of about five or six stray
dogs. me, being the youngest, and smallest, and who was on a bike closest to the ground, started to
freak out. apparently my panic induced fear in my sister, and her "fight or flight" sense kicked in to high
gear.
turns out, she's not a fighter.
however, she is smart, and realized that if she just rode off the dogs would still probably chase after
her. so, with all her might, she mustered enough courage to ride over to me and push me to the ground,
thus, sacrificing me to the dogs. as i fell, my knee smashed into the curb and then onto the newly paved and
graveled street. my dad then came up behind me, rescuing me from the being mauled, or more likely from
being licked to death by the dogs.

oddly enough, that is probably one of my favorite stories about my sister, as it really shows the depth of our relationships. i thought of it today for two reasons. one, i was sitting in the bath and noticed the scar which made me chuckle a bit as i recalled its birthplace. the other was watching some of my kiddos today at work. there are pairs of siblings that come to our program, and they all get along so well with each other, with the older ones looking out for the younger ones and such. and though, on some level i envy what they have, i am mostly filled with hope that they never have stories, of sacrificing one another, of their own.