My Sister Lisa

   

My sister Lisa is my best friend, my psychic twin. The reason I feel badly Henry’s an only child. She, more than anyone else, has been my life companion. When I was four my mother made me hold her hand when we crossed the street. When she was four my mother made me hold her hand when we crossed the street. At night, in our room after the lights were out I would teach her the secret of counting to one hundred. At breakfast, when we ate our Cap’n Crunch™ I explained how to tell time. I wasn’t very effective, as she still has no sense of time whatsoever. Lisa was a little odd, when she was very young; she wanted to be a bunny. She was also already compassionate, on her fourth birthday my mother had to call people to bring their children over, because Lisa had invited every disabled child she’d ever met. And none of them could play any of the regular birthday party games my mother had planned.

    By the time we were in elementary school we played Y.P.S.S. – Young People’s Spying Society. I was the commander and she was the eternal trainee. I made her do all sorts of things, from climbing trees to walking barefoot across searing hot blacktop. She had to scale fences and pass a never-ending stream of tests so she could be a “real spy”. She never quite made it, but she hung in there. When we played school, I was the teacher. When we played “Brady Bunch” I was Marcia and she was Cindy, when it was “Gilligan’s Island”, I was Ginger and she was relegated to Mrs. Howell, Lovie. Performances? I was the director. Broadway musicals? I was the choreographer and she would be the dancing horse.

    As we got older, I was the trick rider and she trained as a hunter/jumper. Somewhere along the way, Lisa got older and taller than me. By the time we were in high school, I was waitressing, going to movies, dating - the quintessential moody teenager. Lisa, on the other hand, took the proficiency test and left school in the tenth grade. She was riding, working at a barn and hanging out with people in their thirties. She’s probably the only high school dropout who became a doctor. In college, we both pledged the same sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi and after that we were roommates until Lisa got married.

    Since our mother died, Lisa and I take turns mothering each other just as our mother taught us to do. Lisa is sharp-tongued sarcastic, terrible at returning phone calls, at times bossy, a great mother, a reluctant housekeeper and the kindest person I know.
    As we all head to Washington, we’ve stopped in Healdsburg for a barbecue with Chris’ brother Cam, and as I look over at Lisa wiping Henry’s face clean of chocolate, I can’t imagine going without Lisa.