Friday, August 20, 2010
Gratitude Project
Day 8 – Sister
I was nearly 8 years old the day my parents brought my sister home from the hospital. I had spent the summer at a poorly supervised horse-back riding camp, where kids as young as myself were allowed to lead horses around and sneak off on trails rides. It was pure bliss. I felt strong, capable, and complete.
When I arrived home, wearing my dusty boots and britches, my mother immediately sent me to shower. I got out and started toweling off, and she told me to get back in and take another shower. That was my first tip-off that this sister-thing was going to be big. I had never had to get so clean before touching something before.
As I held my sister for the first time and gazed down into her mushy baby-face, I remember my brain doing this crazy expansion thing, like something out of the Matrix movie. My brain, and then my heart, started to unfold into new dimensions I had never realized were there. I knew intuitively in that moment, that the human I was holding was an extraordinary miracle, and that her existence would be central to my own forever. This moment was also a beautiful foreshadowing of the similar self-expanding moments that I would experience later holding my own children for the first time.
I am grateful for so much about my sister – I’ll sing her praises more in future posts – but the first gratitude is for how she made me aware of the mystical and awesome universe we live in.
Photo: My sister carrying my daughter (age 9 months)
Labels: Gratitude Project
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