The First of October

October 1, 1974, I was fourteen months and one week old. Sixty-one weeks, to put it another way. I didn't know what that meant, exactly, until I had my own sixty-one week old child, and suddenly I came to understand my mama in a whole new way. Because when my mama had a sixty-one week old daughter, she brought home a second, brand spankin' new daughter. And oh sweet holy moses that must've been hard.



For me, though, it meant that I would never remember the world before my sister. I will never run out of vintage photos of us together. By the time I could say full sentences, or even walk without a wobble, she was already here.

For me, it means deciding to raise an only child (and I recognize how fortunate we are, to get to make such a choice, and I don't take that fortune lightly) seemed almost unthinkable for many years, because my childhood is so tightly bound to hers. I nearly mourn the baby sister V will never have, largely because I can't picture my life without mine.

We spent this past weekend in Minneapolis, with our mother and her sisters (and their brother), and we got to spend the entirety of her 37th birthday together.

There is no one I would rather near 40 with (well, sixty-one weeks before) than you, Sissy.  Maybe next year we should go to Vegas. Or Sweden. Or at least Hillsboro. Wherever we are, we'll have a good time, so long as we're together.