May 25 2001

Megan’s Birthday

Published by at 6:40 am under Uncategorized

Today my sister Megan turns 30, and I am looking back over these three decades and feeling so lucky that she came along.

Megan was supposed to be born on my birthday, and since I was 8 years old at the time, I wasn’t very pleased. My birthday should be all about me, after all. But on my 9th birthday, Megan was brought home from the hospital, a tiny (5 pounds) brown-haired baby (a thrill for my parents after 3 blondes) and life has never been the same.

My mother was 40 when she had Megan, and this was her second Caesarean section. Both of these things were unusual at the time, and Mom’s parents came to help take care of us since Mom was not well and stayed in bed for what seemed like a long time after Megan’s birth.

Because I changed her diapers, fed her, played with her, gave her baths and so on, she has always been something like my own child to me. This feeling was reinforced when she lived with me for 3 years following our parents’ divorce, in her last three years of high school. So in a way, I know what it’s like to wait up for my daughter to come home, to worry about her, and to be filled with a love and pride that is unlike any other.

Megan and I think we are some kind of twins because we were born 9 years and 9 days apart. We often say the same things at the same time, and rarely go more than two days without talking on the phone. When I look at her, I see all the Megans she has been and is: the little baby laughing in her playpen at the lilacs waving in the wind outside the window (her first laugh); learning to swim in Maine, so skinny that her bathing suit straps were tied together with ribbon; a tall teenager with her beloved rescued stray dog Jesse; just married at 20, her face radiant with love and hope; graduating from Montessori teaching school; teaching, her classroom filled with happy children; on the dark, muddy road the night we found our father fallen from a stroke, and the two of them, the same height, but Megan tall, young and strong with her bright hair and Dad, his hair thinning and grey, being helped to the plane by his tall, lovely child, that little baby he brought home to us 30 years ago, now a strong, beautful woman.

I see all those things and I am so proud of her and the person she is. My little sister, my friend. Today is truly a day to celebrate, the day that brought you to us.

pixelstats trackingpixel

One response so far

One Response to “Megan’s Birthday”

  1. Candion 25 May 2001 at 10:37 am

    Awww, so sweet I think I’d vomit if I didn’t know you. LOL!

    Wonder why I’m not so nice about MY sister? Hmmm… maybe in a few years…