We were basically always friends we fought now and then what sisters don't, but we were always close.

We would give each other the giggles so bad sometimes that we couldn't stop or talk.  Sometimes we wouldn't even remember what had started it, we went out to eat with the family once and they put us at a separate nearby table because we couldn't stop laughing.  We ate Jell-O through straws and made bets about who could make funnier noises through the straw, she nearly stabbed a waiter with her fork that night and all we could do was collapse in laughter the apology never made it out.  She could only laugh and wave the fork at him shaking her head, I could only laugh.

Then I got a car and we were summer free.  We went everywhere together.  We spent that summer trying to see who could make the other do the worse spit take or get the soda through the nose.  I won when she sneezed up in a fit of laughter Dr Pepper and sesame seeds at Burger King one afternoon.  There was a store in town called Thrifty that sold cylindrical scoops of ice cream in a cone for a dollar, we were there almost everyday.  It was also a real store with departments; toys, pharmacy, clothes, magazines and electronics.  She wanted to buy a camera for our vacation so we got an ice cream and went to look at cameras.  No one was at the counter we rang the bell and waited but nothing.  She got impatient and decided the one she wanted was right there on the wall, she would just get it and we would go pay.  She plucked up her courage and started to push the little gate to go back there.  An alarm started blaring she got this terrified look on her face threw her ice cream to the side and yelled “RUN”, and we did.  We ran and ran out of the store, into the parking lot, to the car, and went speeding off.  After the adrenaline calmed down I pulled into a park we got out and fell in the grass laughing at our adventure.  She never went back in that store, she was afraid they might recognise her.  I would have to go get the ice cream myself and bring it out to her.

We could be bad and defiant together in harmless ways, but we felt like rebels.  She went through an obsessive Doors phase and when the movie was being advertised our parents said she was too young to go see it.  The day the movie opened I skipped class, picked her up at school, claiming some emergency, and we went to see the film.  Little things like that, sneaking off with the church envelope and spending the money on plants and sodas instead of going to the eight am mass.  We were a team.  We would even gang up to tease the baby together, and our joint efforts could almost guarantee tears.

My senior year of High School I took her everywhere with me; to study, to parties, to functions, anywhere I could, she would be starting High School the next year and I wanted her to know people and be comfortable.  Through me she met most of the friends she would have through out her High School years and some she still has, she even met her husband to be.  She was Maid of Honor at my wedding, I was Matron of Honor at hers we were close.

We used to talk about everything and nothing all the time.  So what happened now we almost never talk at all?  Thanksgiving all I could get out of my attempts at conversation were two even three word answers.  I don't understand her anymore.  The longest conversation I have had with my sister in years is when I called her out of the blue while I was stuck in the drive through line at a chicken joint.  I called her many times the day of her husband's back surgery to check on her to let her know she wasn't alone.  He appreciated it but I don't know if she did, she seemed almost annoyed. 

I miss my sister, my friend.  Did she outgrow me?  I just don't fit in with her scientific, sophisticated lifestyle.  Maybe I'm too small town or too sentimental but I love her. 

I still never forget her birthday.