Behold the birthday girl, front and center.
Tomorrow is my little sister’s birthday, and like most adult siblings, I didn’t get her anything to mark the occasion. This doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not thinking about her- or that I don’t think about my sister on a daily basis. In fact, if you check out
the posting I did on my oldest sister, you can see that I place a high premium on the worth of my siblings.
(Don’t worry, Sister #2, I promise to buy you something chocolately in lieu of telling my faithful readers about you).
In my line of work, I go home only about once a year. For me, the ability to return to the Commonwealth is akin to coming off artificial respiration and being re-released into fresh air; I absolutely love taking leave in order to see my family. They’re the people who keep me motivated when this military tempo beats me down, and they are always around to hear me rant- regardless of the topic. My little sister Molly of course is an important member of this crazy cadre.
But Molly no longer lives in Massachusetts. A few years back she moved to New York City- an act by any Masshole’s account that could be considered high treason. I don’t think it’s any understatement to say that none of us in the family were exactly bowled over by her decision to uproot and move to a place that was far away from the family. But that’s Molly.
We do our own thing. I’m wearing the red crepe paper headband (and probably found the Easter basket in the cellar) while Molly goes for the “just got out of the shower” look. My childhood best friend is sporting the Pringle hand while little brother John is probably just being a pain in the ass.
Like the rest of us kids, the only drum that Molly has ever heard was the one that beats with only her genetic code in mind. She has pretty much marked her life by doing nonconformist stuff like this. Even though she is the fourth child, Molly is always pulling off feats that none of us have yet attempted. And she always does this while the rest of us look on in bemused trepidation: “What is Molly up to? Is this really gonna turn out okay?”
Even though we all gave her a hard time as a little kid, Molly still grew up to be an amazingly compassionate and resilient woman. I hope she doesn’t mind me saying this, but at the moment she is raising two great kids with a mind-boggling maternal deftness that I love to watch in action. “That’s genius! I would never have thought to do that.” is my observation of her parenting skills. You don’t need any kind of permit to have a kid, but it does take a certain amount of innate skill to be a parent who balances boundless love with hard-ass discipline. Molly’s got that. Even if none of us got along particularly well as young children, I can certainly say that I have tons of respect for Molly and the life she has carved.
Of all the siblings, we’re the ones who look (and sound) the most alike. When we were little, I always looked at this as an obstacle to establishing my own identity. Now that we’re older, I look at our similarities as a real gift.
So I just wanted to put down a few words about my little sister to let her know that I was thinking about her from all the way over in West Africa. In our everyday rush to get stuff done, I don’t think we stop often enough to tell the people around us how important they actually are- so I think that this is an opportune time for me to do so.
Happy Birthday Molly! You are loved and valued by these two hellions, along with a whole slew of other people across the globe.
P.S. Thanks for not making your kids Yankees fans.
