Being Big

I am a big sister.  I have been a big sister since my brother was Kentucky-born, exactly eighteen months after my own Oklahoma City birthday.  That's the only kind of sister I know how to be:  big.

Our family went in what I thought was perfect order:  girl, boy, girl, boy.  Like critters hitching a ride with Noah we marched in perfect symmetry, two by two, and I was the boss of us all, because that's what oldest sisters are supposed to be.  I was perfectly happy with that arrangement.  Them?  Not so much.

Being the boss is hard, hard, hard.  You always have to be paying attention to what everybody else is doing.  You have to know all the rules, in case they forget, and they always forget.  You have to remind them to do stuff, like let the dog out, let the dog in, don't forget your homework, and lock the back door.

Being big is a lot of work.

But I was big enough for the job, and so I did it.  Sometimes they didn't like it very much, like the time I told my sister she needed to clean up her side of the room.  She got mad at me.  I got mad at her.  Stuff got thrown around.  Priceless (not really, but they could have been) mementos were broken.

After the battle she went to her side of the room and I went to mine.  She sniffled and I snuffled.  Before long we made up and went on downstairs to do other sisterly stuff, like fly as high as the sky on the death-defying homemade rope swing in the yard.

Or there was the time my brother got so mad he cornered me in the kitchen by the stove and threw his baseball glove as hard as he could right at my stomach.  I don't remember what very responsible big sister thing I had done that made him so mad, but I sure do remember that glove hitting me--thud--right in the gut.

Or there was the time I took charge of the TV after school and my brother got so mad he sat on my back, stuffed my face in the green shag carpet, and slugged me.  It wasn't my fault he didn't know what show to watch.

Then there was the day in junior high when I thought being a big sister had finally killed me.  My brother and I were both on the academic team together.  That situation is weird enough.  But to top it off, the coach had put us at the table in the middle of a big competition, right next to each other.  Bad coach.

Our team was given a question.  I knew the answer.  I was right.  I was always right.  But my brother wouldn't listen to me.  I whispered and I whispered and I whispered.  Finally he turned his head, looked me right in the face, and loud enough so every single person in the whole entire cafeteria could hear, said, "Would you shut up?"

I don't remember if we got the points or not.  I don't even remember if we won the match.  All I remember is exactly how much I wanted to slide under that cold metal table onto the cold linoleum floor and die a cold, quiet death.

Being a big sister can be so humiliating.

These days I'm a much older older sister.  They are much older younger siblings.  I don't call them on the phone and tell them what to do (well, not much).  I never get slugged and mementos are safe when we are around.  Somehow, in spite of ourselves, we all grew up.

But get us together in a room for a little while, and the "big" in me starts to worm its way out.  What do they expect?  It's my job.

This piece was written for instructional use in a 6th grade writing class in response to their prompt to write about their position in the family order.

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This past week I was lucky enough to see tennis on our country's largest stage.  This isn't it.  It's the second largest stage--Armstrong Stadium at Flushing Meadows.  The fellow in yellow is Juan Martin del Potro--he won the U.S. Open two years ago.  Last year at this time, when he should have been defending his title, he was rehabbing at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota--I know this because I was at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota at the exact same time and we became nodding acquaintances.  He was a lonely, frustrated young man, far from home, eating his lunch in a restaurant bar, watching on a flat screen what he should have been doing.  I was glad to see him this past weekend competing on this court.

Juan is from Argentina.  He speaks broken English.  His fans, all of whom had to stand in line waiting for seats to open up so they could have their turn to sit, shared impossibly tight bleacher seats with many folks who spoke broken English, if they spoke it at all.  It was hot.  It was humid.  The sun was unforgiving.  But every one was pleasant, even courteous.

I heard accents from all over the world in those stadium seats.  The night before I sat next to a Russian who could not contain his enthusiastic support of Davydenko, even as Davydenko succumbed to Serbian Djokovic's #1-ranked game.  His English was good, if unmistakably Russian.  He had a great time.  I had a great time.

I shared escalator stairs with Arabs in head gear, with orthodox Jews, with stylish French, and with animated Spaniards spouting the name Rafa on their breathless tongues.

We all shared the same seats.  We all touched the same railings.  We all ate the same food prepared in the same kitchens.  We all used the same, very personal, facilities. 

This scenario, worthy of a United Nations White Paper, was made possible by a little, bouncy ball and two men (or women) with rackets in their hands.

New York City.  Hot, sweaty, tight quarters.  As many nationalities, religions, ethnicities as you could squeeze in.  

Peace.  It's possible.