Happy birthday, Diana!
There are some birthdays, particularly as we get older, that are just plain boring.
You know the ones I mean.
No Medicare. No Social Security. No new benefits of any kind. Not even a new discount.
Just the inexorable march of time.
Yesterday was not one of those birthdays for The Legal Genealogist‘s sister, Diana.
Neither of us looks entirely sure about this new arrangement…
I probably shouldn’t give too much away here.
After all, she knows where I live.
And she knows all the things I’ve ever done that have gotten me — and her — in trouble.
There’s little doubt the mud was my idea, not Diana’s.
She is older than I am and suffers from all of the usual complaints of the oldest child: she was the rule-follower, I was the rule-breaker. You could eat off the floor on her side of our shared bedroom, you couldn’t see the floor on my side. I would head off to do something dumb, she would dutifully follow along to try to keep me out of the worst of trouble, and usually end up in trouble right by my side.
I’m sure she remembers all those times.
Like the time our mother had taken the younger kids to visit her parents in Virginia during the school year, leaving Diana and me behind. I slipped on the ice when we were walking to school and decided that was an omen: I wasn’t going to school. The neighbor who was watching us decided to call the police when her boys came home for lunch and told her they hadn’t seen us at school.
Or the time I decided it was too nice a day to have to go to school and we should play in the field near the house instead. After all, we could hear the school bells and just go home on time by listening to the bells. I hadn’t counted on the fact that you’d get home 15 minutes too early if you didn’t remember there was a warning bell first…
My first friend.
My oldest friend.
Still friends… after all these years… I guess she’s forgiven me!
My lifelong friend.
My sister.
Happy birthday, Diana!
A very sweet birthday tribute to your big sister, Judy!
Happy Birthday to Diana who is a cousin I hope to meet someday!
Speaking of getting older and social security, I read this piece today and thought it would be a great project to crowdsource to the genealogical community – maybe in return for access to some info? http://www.poconorecord.com/article/20150314/NEWS/150319674/101010/NEWS
The problem is that government officials see the easy solution (close the records) rather than the right solution (correct the records). We’ve already lost access to the most recent three years of the SSDI because Congress chose the easy solution.
Judy, I love your tender tributes to your family. We can all tell just how much they mean to you.
Guess it runs in our families Judy. I have two sisters. An older and younger.
Outside of my Mother, these were the women in my life until I married. The older one “smart as a whip”. Daddy would look at her straight “A” report card and then at mine. As he read, his voice rose in anger. No, he did not spank me but I thought he would and swore I would do better the next semester. Then here came my lil sister. Maybe she would make worse grades than me and take the heat off! Nope, another smart one. I was doomed to be the dummy, but later in life watched these two smart women work hard at their jobs and still raise their children. They needed those extra smarts for all the challenges these women would face. I love them dearly and can see why they got the extra brains, they needed’em!
My sister, Peggy, was my “Diana”. We got into and out of scrapes together. She’s known me all my life and still kinda likes me. We talk on the phone every week and don’t hang up until we’ve both laughed about something. There’s nothing like a big sis!
Beautiful memories. I am the younger sister in my family. And was the one who played in mud, and always got in trouble.
We have one more younger sister, Alona… and then the ton of brothers too!
I agree with Peggy – your tributes and memories of your family always cause me to ‘gulp’ and get the dust out of my eyes. I’m the younger sister, too, so I know how important our big sisters are. Happy birthday, Diana!
I have the privilege of being both a younger and an older sister, Debi — it’s fun, when we’re not trying to kill each other!