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| If my story can save just one life... |
My previous
entries have already established that my older sisters were two of the biggest
tormentors of my childhood years and often the bane of my existence. Had you
told me when I was seven (and Mom quite likely did) that my sisters would
become two of my best friends, I would have scoffed for days. How could these
two people, who then caused me so much sibling suffering, ever be my willing confidantes?
But of course that’s exactly what happened.
Oh, I saw
signs of it even back then. When an older boy pushed me into a busy street
(busy by small town standards, which means not really that busy at all) I cried
to Cheryl, who then traveled to his house, knocked on his door and promptly
punched him in the nose. When she followed up with “That’s for my baby sister!”
he protested, “But I don’t even know your sister!” It turned out the pushing
perpetrator was actually his brother, who still lived at home with their
parents.
Oops!
On another occasion
that I sometimes think of as Slapocalypse ‘79 (although I’m kind of muddy on
the dates now) I was involved in a verbal altercation with a neighborhood
friend who was about two years older than I. Her closing argument came in the
form of a slap to my face, and Kenna immediately and instinctively returned the
infraction. This earned Kenna a slap in the face from the girl’s older sister
(who was Kenna’s age and one of her closest friends.) It was a retaliatory wallop-fest of epic
proportion.
