I happened upon a writing spark that suggested “How I met my…” Hmmm. Boyfriend/love monkey/PFL? Yawn. gynecologist? TMI. Sister? Yes! Trouble is, I don’t remember how I met her; but I imagine I was probably screaming about something. Air, food, a crap filled diaper.

One of my earlier memories of her is when I was around 7 and I called my brother fat. We were standing at the bottom of our stairs in the sub-basement where our bedrooms and the “rec room” were and she retorted: “you’re ugly.” I argued with her and she introduced me to a new meaning of the word. She was always so smart, and she always knew how to shut me up.

My next memory wasn’t long after. She was going away for a week or more that summer and I was beside myself. Inconsolable. We’d shared a bedroom most of my life (once I’d graduated from the dresser drawer. Seriously.) and I couldn’t fathom being without her. Scratch that - I didn’t WANT to fathom being without her.

When she finally left, she told me I had to be good and brave, that she’d left me a present if I was. I was. And I got the present - mom pulled it from its hiding place on top of the fridge. I think it was a charm…hell it could have been a Monopoly piece. There was a note that my mother read me that day with the present that made me feel less lost. There was another prize and another note the day after, and the day after that.

I came to understand as well as I could with that tiny brain still trying to learn to count to 100 without using my fingers that even when she wasn’t with me, she was thinking about me…and in that way, she was with me.

With eight years between us, I was still rocking bifocals and a Dorthy Hamill do when she left for Northwestern to grow on her own terms.

I visited her there one summer when my mom was in the hospital and they needed the little ones (Kevin and I) to be taken care of. He went to Montana with family friends, I visited Evanston for a week during the rest of the summer I spent in Nebraska with my aunties.

That summer Jennifer educated me on the wonder that is sunscreen (errr…Coppertone), put makeup on me, and let me wear one of her fancy, hip, 80’s belts. It was green and I felt soooooo grown up. We went to a production of Don Quiote and she made chicken Kiev for dinner. She introduced me to Cinnamon Toast Crunch, she brought me to the place that served the best deep dish in town, from which I’ve never fully recovered. I thought I was in Neverland.

In 1998 when we were together at our family reunion/immigration anniversary, we showed up with the same handbag. I don’t mean that in a “omg we’ere wearing the same dress…I have to leave!” kinda way, because she and I are one handbag and one handbag only kinda girls. No swapping to match your outfit. Of all the purses in all the towns…she got hers in LA and I got mine in Atlanta.

Crap, I’m boring myself.

We have a lot of history, she and I. Memories of squabbles are buried under memories of so many other good things. She was a was a stand-in mother when my own couldn’t be, but a sister through it all. She’s a wonderful woman, a great friend, a brainiac and an inspiration.

I could have done worse.