Lent Day 14 - Holly

Today is my sister’s birthday, so it felt that today’s post should be about her. I dug through the scarified wreckage of my old once-epic blog (can you tell I was watching episode two of The Mandalorian today?) to see if I had ever written a birthday post for her. And I had! Twelve years ago! Wow! That’s a long time! This is a lot of exclamation points! This Lenten writing project is a mix of new and old things, so I decided to use some of the stories from the old post. Because history doesn’t change, no matter how much you want it to. (That felt ominous, like it was vaguely referencing something from outside of this post. We’ll pull at that thread later.)

I have already told the legendary Goldfish story and about hiding and jumping out at her in my post about me being a little jerk, so that won’t be rehashed here. Don’t worry; there are more.

• Holly wasn't always the innocent victim in our dealings.  When we were growing up, all three of the kids would have to ride in the back seat of our parents' station wagon.  As we got older, this became a tighter squeeze.  My brother would have to put his arm back behind us to fit.  One day he flicked me in the nose, for no good reason.  It made this weird hollow PLOONK sound.  From that day on, Holly would frequently flick me in the car to mimic that PLOONK sound.
• Tormenting each other in the car was a regular habit growing up. Sometimes Holly would get mad at our mom - NEVER was she provoked, mind you. Our mother was an angel, and she NEVER needled her children or spouse. She NEVER EVER would make really sarcastic comments that inflamed a situation. So when my mom used to say Holly had “herhorns” out when she got mad, that was just a helpful comment and NOT intended to make a bad situation worse. Anyways, we were riding in the back seat of the car, and Holly was scowling at something. I thought of the “horns out” comments. I just was being dumb, so I made a fist and held it up against my forehead. The fist was sideways, with the thumb side pressed on my forehead and the pinkie side facing out. Then I started singing, “I’ve got a horn … on … my head.” Holly looked over and must have thought that the song was just amazing, cause she lit up and put HER hand into a fist and held it the same way against her forehead. She bounced her head around to the song. Then, lightning fast, I threw my other hand up and smashed her own fist against her forehead. I cackled a very long time about that. 
• My brother and I shared a bedroom. He used to sing his evil rock and roll songs all the time when he was getting ready for school. He also got ready much earlier than me, since his high school started at 7:30 and my middle school started after 9. One time, he was singing, and I was awake and laying in bed until my alarm went off. He sang, “WHOA! She’s beautiful!” I called out of our room in a high pitched voice, “Thaaaaanks.” He stopped singing and said, “Uh … you’re welcome.” Then he waited for a moment and asked, “Who said that?” I stayed silent. “Holly? Did you say that?” Then he wandered over to her room, opened the door, and WOKE HER UP to ask her if she had said the comment. At this point, I was laughing so hard that he heard me. The stupid joke had turned out so much better than I could have imagined. Not only did it throw Chris off, but he woke Holly up for no reason. Ahhhhh, good times. 
• After Holly got older, she moved downstairs into a different room.  Of course, I still needed to find ways to torment her.  The door out of her room opened into the bathroom.  And there was a door out of the bathroom right next to that door - and they both opened inward for some reason.  You could actually leave the bathroom door open a little, so when the person coming out of the bedroom tried to open the door, it would just slam against the bathroom door and not open.  Yes, I did this.
• One day she was reading in her room with the doors closed.  I was in the bathroom and for no good reason started pounding on the door.  I decided to re-enact a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  I leaned against the door and screamed in a British accent, "Open the door!  Open the door!  In the name of God, open the door!!!"  So she did.  Right into my nose.  This was one of three times my siblings broke, dislocated, or generally screwed up my nose.
• One day in the backyard, we were playing "soccer."  In reality, it was us kicking the ball around and me running up the score against Holly.  She had to defend the entrance to the alleyway next to our house that was part of our yard.  I had to defend some random spot on the other side.  The ball mostly was in her half of the yard.  I was being an arrogant turd.  She was getting irritated.  Our backyard was not in great shape, mind you.  There were some big dips and holes due to an old septic tank that had collapsed.  I knew about these dips, since I was the one who had to pick up the dog doo doo.  So, at one point, Holly pointed at one hole and said, "Don't step in that hole there."  Being ultra-confident of myself and running high on the thrill of thrashing her, I really snottily replied, "What?!?  THIS hole?"  And then I stepped in it and went to kick the ball past her.  My left knee snapped backwards and hyperextended like it had been hit by a linebacker.  This led to my first arthroscopic knee surgery when I was 13.  
• Being the youngest child, Holly followed the universal rule of tattling on her brothers.  As we became teenagers and I started driving, I had to often take Holly with me in the car.  My mom would often ask me about specific things that happened while I was driving - like if I had pulled into a parking spot too fast or sped on a road. This led to my belief that my mother was psychic. Seriously, she knew a freakish amount of details for a person who wasn’t there. It turns out that my sister would tell my mom everything I did wrong while driving.  This drove me nuts.  One day we were driving down Parker Avenue on a wet road.  Some idiot in front of me cut me off and I had to slam on the brakes.  My car fishtailed wildly until it finally stopped.  We both were terrified.  But my first thought was to look over at Holly and say, "I didn't do anything wrong. That happens sometimes.  Don't go telling mom I was driving crazy."  She told on me anyways.  Fortunately my mom defended me that time.  
• In high school, I never had a girlfriend. (Shocker) There were girls I liked, but it never amounted to anything.  (I was a great friend, though.  Grrrr.)  One day in Spanish class, someone was goofing around and doing that whole mature "youlike so and so" thing.  They said to this girl (ironically named Heather), "You like David."  She, naturally, said, "No I don't."  Then she added this stunner.  "Besides, he has a girlfriend."  This came as a surprise to me.  "Huh?  Who told you that?"  She responded, "John Bishop told me that. He said he saw you two together in the sports store he works at."  I thought back to the one time I had been in that store. Oh man. "Uh, that was my sister.  Please make sure everyone knows that I am not dating my sister."

We have so much history together. When we were little we would play together all the time: blocks, My Little Ponies, board games, card games, on the jungle gym out back. We both had to explain to our friends why we didn’t believe in the tooth fairy or trick-or-treat. We both were asked why we didn’t have a Christmas tree or decorations and why our presents were wrapped in generic non-holiday wrapping paper. Since we were so close in age, we always were paired up. We usually were at the same school together. We were in the same church youth groups. We had a lot of the same friends. Later on, she was in the college group I ran at my first church job. She has been a constant part of my life, and she has seen me go from being an annoying child to annoying teenager to annoying adult. She was friends with Heather and was there for our entire relationship. Her son and my younger son are the same age, so we went through pregnancies and deliveries together. I officiated her wedding, and then helped her get out of the subsequent awful marriage. I taught her son how to shave. 

We have lost and mourned both of our parents. We then lost our brother. We are it: the last witnesses to what went down at in the big blue house in West Palm Beach. The good and the bad. We have shared trauma, shared grief, shared joy. Now, we are trying to navigate our late 40s together. We often will ask each other something about our childhood as we wrestle with what to do with memories. As I am recognizing the truth about my life, as I am able to name some of the past experiences as abuse, I will frequently check in with her to make sure I’m remembering things right. Whenever we are together, invariably there will be a painful hour or so when we rehash things. As hard as those conversations are, I am thankful that we have each other to rely on. We have someone there to say, “No, you’re not crazy. That happened.” We both hid in our rooms, trying to avoid the inevitable rage tornado swirling downstairs. We both knew what it was like to be unfavorably compared to a sibling. We both knew the guilt of “not having it as bad” as our brother. We both knew the religious trauma, the emotional abuse, the impossible standards. 

There are things that Holly went through that I never had to. She followed so closely behind me that she had to deal with all of the teachers who had already had me in class. She was made to feel that finishing 7th in her class wasn’t good enough because I had finished 1st in mine. I hated that for her. I hated it soooo much. It wasn’t fair. Also, I got away. I moved to Orlando for school and barely looked back. She didn’t have the distance that I did. Something always pulled her back. So she was there when our dad died; I was in Tampa and didn’t have to see it first hand. She had to raise her son alone, but with a lot of other voices in her ears. She’s had to fight and scratch and push and … She’s an incredible person. She’s tough and strong. She’s generous and empathetic. She works so hard to provide for her and her son, despite having physical ailments. (Yet another shared experience - crappy genes.) She fights ghosts and haunting memories. She does everything she can to break the cycle of generational damage. She may not be able to see it because it is always tough to see the big picture when the current situation is so difficult, but she is winning. She is overcoming. She is providing a better life for her son that she had. My sister is a beautiful, brilliant, funny, amazing woman. I’m blessed to have her in my life. I’m thankful for her. Happy birthday, you dork.