Imagine being 12 years old and being told that your absent father was having another child. Not exactly an easy pill to swallow, is it? Sitting in that McDonald’s on a chilly October day, you could cut the tension between my father and I with a knife. After six years without any contact from him, there he was, telling me that I was going to have a little brother or sister.
I was hurt, I was angry, I was confused. How was I, a pubescent middle schooler, going to have a relationship with a baby? To make matters worse, my step mother informed me that her due date was my birthday. I had never felt such pure jealousy before. Where did he get off having another kid with the same birthday as the kid he abandoned?
Three weeks before my 13th birthday I got a call from one of my uncles telling me that my step mom had gone into labor. I was elated that I was going to be able to keep my birthday, but still not thrilled about having a new sibling. Then someone sent me the first pictures of my newborn sister, and I fell in love.
She looked like me; neither of my other two sisters do. I had never seen my nose, mouth and eye shape on another person before. That little-brown eyed beauty is the spitting image of her green eyed big sister. She looks up to me more than my other sisters ever have. She’ll happily do anything to be “just like sissy."
Having a little sister 13 years younger than me has made me a better person. I resisted the poor choices that my peers were making in high school because I knew she was watching me, and I certainly don’t want her modeling bad behavior after me. She taught me to not be so serious all the time, and she reminds me that it’s perfectly OK to be silly sometimes. I’d take a night in watching Disney Junior and playing dress up with my little munchkin over a night out partying anytime.
