Most people know what it's like to grow up with a sister or brother or a best friend. You do everything together - you play together and you get into trouble together. You may grow apart as you grow up, but when you're young you're thick as thieves. Such was the relationship between my sister and me, although our childhood was a little bit different. Having been in a wheelchair since the age of three, I was obviously incapable of the type of physical playing that children enjoy. I couldn't run and play a game of tag or search high and low in a game of hide and seek, or jump from couch to chair to coffee table while pretending that the floor was a sea of hot lava.
But these limitations did not stop my sister and me from playing together. We adapted to the situation and filled the majority of our free time with drawing, movies, and Barbies. Swinging and sidewalk chalk were options as well, but only if Mom or Dad were available to transfer me into the swing or onto the ground.
My sister, however, went one step beyond these regular activities. Having limited options can quickly become boring after a while, especially to a child's attention span, so my sister took it upon herself to make things as interesting as she could. One of the most memorable twists to a normal activity was the guessing game in movie watching. We had a huge collection of movies - mostly Disney - and we watched them so many times that I swear I had them all memorized! My sister apparently decided to test my skills so she would tell me to close my eyes while she put in a tape (VHS). It was then my job to guess what movie it was based on sound alone. Only after I guessed correctly could I open my eyes. Nine times out of 10, I could tell what movie was playing by the previews or the first strains of the opening music of the feature presentation. (That is a skill that I retained to this day!)
Even necessary tasks were made more fun. When I had to do arm stretches (raise me arms above my head), my sister took my mind off of the "work" part of them and held various pieces of Barbie clothing or crayons or other things just out of my reach or she would cup her hands together like a shell and "float" the "shell" around until I touched it. When I was first learning to drive a power wheelchair, she took me outside to the concrete slab in front of the garage and drew a road with sidewalk chalk so that I could practice.
She did all that she could to include me in her playing somehow. She was very strong for a seve-year-old and she would literally drag me out of bed in the morning and into our toy room across the hall if Mom didn't get me up fast enough! When we got older and she got rollerblades, she would hang on to the back of my chair and I would tow her around. When our family took in several foster kids, she tied the little red wagon to my chair and I would pull the younger ones while she helped the older one with a big kid bike. As we both entered our mid-teens, she tried to include me in neglecting homework in favor of other, sometimes wacky, experiments or other non-academic pursuits. I tried to be the Jiminy Cricket – the conscience – of our duo, but I usually ended up following along with whatever she wanted.
Troublemaking aside, I will forever be grateful to my sister for not making me feel outside of the norm. We may live miles apart, we may not talk a lot, we may not see each other often, but we will always have those memories of our fun-filled and very unique childhood.
