The closest person I have to an older sister lives in south Texas and got married this past weekend. I was her bridesmaid of honor, her older sister the matron of honor.
My cousin, Meghan, looked dashing in her beaded, satin strapless dress. Although it was rainy and cold in the Texas hill country, we wore our green gowns and felt beautiful.
There were only a few glitches in the weekend. The flowers froze in the refrigerator the night before the wedding, the hairdresser was scheduled at the wrong time, and we scrambled to get our hair and make-up done before pictures. But the wedding went pretty smoothly.
I call Meghan my older sister because our mothers are sisters and best friends, and our families grew up together, despite a plane ride or two in between our homes.
I experienced many of my "firsts" with Meghan: my first cigarette, first drink of vodka, first time at a college party, first and only sex-toy party.
Beyond the typical vices our older siblings make available to us, Meghan and her sister Joan have been my constant go-to girls. They were always calm and knew what to do when I called or came to them with one of my teenage crises.
In her toast to the bride, Joan said no one knows you like a sister. I've seen those two bicker and piss each other off to no end, but there is a deep respect and love between sisters that carries them through tough times. Sisters like them share clothes, favorite concerts and secrets no one else knows.
You'll have to forgive me that I can't think of my little sister, nine years younger, as a best friend and confidante. Perhaps someday Ann and I will share intimate details, but for now she is a kid who requires a lot of patience and management.
We sometimes share clothes. Our feet are the same size, and she took my new pair of Chucks. She gave me a pair of pants too big for her waist but a foot short on me.
We have gone to concerts together, but standing in a field full of screaming 'tweeners burning up for the Jonas Brothers is not exactly my idea of a night out on the town ...
As my sister enters adolescence - she'll be 13 in two months! - I hope she'll need me more, like I needed Meg and Meg needed Joan.
Ann is plummeting down that dark, scary path to the teenage years. She already talks in the exasperated tone I recognize so well: "I know Dad, I'm not stupid." I used that same line, in that same tone, so often I understand why my parents and I had problems.
I see so much of my former self in that eye-rolling, back-talking little brat, and all I can try to be is a mediator between child and parents. A big sister is the perfect middle ground.
Ann is ready for a boyfriend, and I'm guessing she'll need boy advice.
Since the prospects of getting a boyfriend are looking dim at school, she expects to find the lucky boy on her next adventure - in Africa. Mom, Dad and Ann are most likely moving to Tanzania for a year in the fall. They will volunteer at an orphanage for disabled kids, teaching English, biology and tennis.
Ann thinks she will find an interested orphan to call her own. "I'll get a boyfriend in Tanzania, even if he doesn't have any arms," she said.
"Who is this kid?" I thought, trying to decipher her rationale behind wanting to date an armless child in Africa. Apparently, she noticed a picture of a boy on the orphanage Web site who probably lost his arms in a horrible accident, and she thought, "Oh, he will do nicely."
He won't be able to play tennis with her, but maybe soccer will be their date of choice.
At first, I thought it was pure desperation to want a boy so far away and so different from Ann. But, as a friend pointed out, what is a boyfriend to a 13-year-old, but a kid to sneak around with and kiss behind the baobab tree?
Ann's first boyfriend can be an armless orphan in Tanzania; it could only lead to more great stories about her, my fearless little sister, Ann.
Kate E. Matthews is a senior in the School of Communication and a columnist for The Eagle. You can reach her at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
