Sister.

From what I've been told, she came early and quick, tearing her way painfully into the world. It would be the first, but not the last, time she would enter a room this way, taking over with her eagerness, her steady competence. This day she would become the first of four children, all girls. Later she would become my idol.

My mother and father say that she was an easy child, ever quiet and cooperative. Her steady attention would become her biggest asset: at two she would sit with my father one day and learn every letter of the alphabet; at four she would alter the course of my life forever - me, the yet unborn - by teaching the other children to read. Her teacher would call my father one day: did you know what she's doing? and resulting months of testing and observation would shape our educations, our expectations.

I worshiped every breath she took, tagging along on walks with dogs and expeditions through literature. I would copy every move she made, read every book she read; I would emulate her gestures and retell her jokes in the hopes that I could capture the essence of her easy humor (I never could). I would love her the way a dog loves its master and she in turn would be abominably cruel in her efforts to shake me. These early years of torment would be replaced, later, as I grew into a semblance of a human being - she would teach me then about God, about love, what it meant to be a family when the family is gone, raising me when our mother left for school and our father knew little more about educating children than imparting them with endless facts. She would question first, but more thoughtfully, less loudly, generating a wake for me to ride upon, a preformed reputation at school that I could slide into without trouble. They would think the best of me because they thought the best of her.

Only once would I see her cry. Years later I would hear her cry, again, on the phone, and I would remember the overwhelming helplessness that I felt the first time: that I cannot help her, that she will always be above me, that I am the one who is supposed to fall. My love for her will always be traced with this outline of adoration, even as we grow now into adults with responsibilities and desires and depressions, sharing rather than forcing our stories onto one another, drunkenly dialing, lamenting and laughing and offering the best bits of advice we can muster.

So here's to you, dear friend, the most influential person in my life: I love you more today than yesterday, and more then than before. I still kind of (sort of) worship you.

Happy Birthday.

P.S. - I know this is late, but then I was never the punctual one. That would be you.