by Nina Hammiel Turner

Created on: December 21, 2008

A SISTER'S LOVE

When I was ten years old my whole life changed in the blink of an eye. My mother got married and shortly after she announced she was pregnant. I had spent ten years as an only child and then she went and had a baby and another girl at that. I was beyond the point of natural jealousy. I'm pretty sure my entire insides were green with envy at not being the baby and not being the only girl, so I took it out on my sister. For years I tortured her - yelling at her, hitting her, anything I could think of to be mean. Even after my mother gave birth to a third child, a boy, no one received the beating I gave to my little sister.

I'm twenty years old now and I wish so much to be able to regain all those years. Not only to regain them, but to replace them.
I'm in college and rarely home yet somehow my sister, who is only nine, has become one of my best friends. There have been a number of events and reasons that got us to this point, but this particular thing stands out the most in my mind.

I had gone home one weekend for a doctor's appointment and general running around that didn't included my family. On my three-hour drive from school my old Pontiac Sunfire began to give out on me and by the time I turned the corner to enter our subdivision I was rolling on shear willpower. I walked in the house and was greeted with hugs and kisses from my baby sister and brother, but I didn't want their hugs and kisses. My first quest was to complain to my parents about my hunk of a junk car. I sat for a few moments talking to my mother, who in the most motherly of ways, could only tell me that my father and her would take a look at the car, but that she couldn't make any promises. It was not the answer I wanted and within a few moments I became overwhelmed, so I walked outside to sit on our front steps and cry.

I was crying because my car had broken down, because I wouldn't have my car to go out and see my boyfriend or my friends. I cried for a lot of different reasons that night, but my main reason was pure and utter frustration. After a few moments I felt a small hand touch my back and I realized it was my sister. She sat next to me, but she didn't say anything. She simply rubbed my back as a caregiver would and looked at me. I used to think that so many things separated us - mainly age - but at that moment I realized my sister had forgiven me for all my mean spirited acts. Perhaps, she'd never even held them against me. I'm not sure which, but I knew from that moment

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