Hi! Remember me? I’m that little girl that used to follow you around and imitate you while you brushed your long, long straight hair and put on your lip smacker… bubble gum flavour, I think it was? Mom even let me have my hair like you, but I had to have bangs; which I hated and I wasn’t allowed to have a lip smacker until I was older.

Oh how I wanted to have shiny lips just like you. I thought you were the prettiest big girl I knew.

I’ll bet you remember when I ‘borrowed’ that lip smacker and broke the little roller ball inside it? Boy were you ever mad at me. I cried so hard and was ever so very sorry.

Remember? I only wanted to be just like you.

My big sister.

I know I got in your way; always around where you were, getting underfoot. I know I was a nuisance to you when you had friends over. But I adored you so much and couldn’t wait to get bigger so I could dress like you and be like you.

Remember how I’d follow you and your friends to your room and hang around outside the door, just wanting to know what big girls talked about? Did they still play with dolls? Did they brush each other’s hair? Did they let their little sisters play with them and use their lip smackers?

Remember how you’d always get Mom to make me go away and ‘leave you alone’.

But you weren’t alone though, you had friends over! Why would one more person make that much difference?

I know I was younger, I know it was you and my brother for years, doing just fine until I came along. I know you never wanted a little sister, you told me so many times. You both did. All the jokes and teases at my expense. But you were joking, right? You didn’t really mean all those mean things you’d say? Right?

Remember...

You know, it’s odd but I don’t seem to be able to recall any real memories of times we shared together; just the two of us. I have plenty with our brother; I was Mac to his Joe. But the only memories I actually have of you are not so nice and involve tears on my part. And even now make me feel so very sad.

How had I glossed these over? Why are they surfacing now? Is it because we’ve just lost our mother? Or because I, at this late age, finally have my own baby girl?

Could be all of that rolled up or it could be the universe’s way of reminding me not to repeat mistakes of the past. Maybe some day I’ll know. Or not.

The grown woman in me wants to cry over this realization and these forgotten memories; cry for that little girl who just wanted her big sister to notice her. To maybe give her even five minutes.

I know seven years is a big difference when your little and who on earth wants a bratty kid sister hanging around? I get it. I never understood it, but I did get it.

But eventually we grew out of the ‘little’ phase and both became women. Yet still that rift remained. No matter how many times I tried. To understand you. To break down that barrier, to finally connect with you.

I really did try, to reach out and mend it. A few times. But one can only take so much rejection before they get the message.

I’m trying my best to forgive, forgive you for all of it. Forgive myself too, because I’m not blameless. Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe I should have understood you better. But I wasn’t ever given the chance to truly see you. The real you. You kept her hidden.

I see you now and I don’t recognize that little big girl I used to admire. Is she even still in there? What happened to her? Why does she need to keep herself hiden away from the one person in all this world who would have accepted her and all her flaws? Why did she then and why does she now? I don’t understand.

Instead, when I look at you now I see time passed and old secrets, some buried so deep I doubt even you remember the details, so how could you share them anyway? Right?

And I see a wall. A wall built up so tall and so sturdy and so thick it’s obvious it’s been amassed over many years and is virtually indestructable. A wall that I will never, ever be able to surmount. Ever.

But I don’t mind anymore, I no longer want to try. Time has passed for me too and I’m tired.

Even now, as I reach way back in my memories, searching for something. For just one little scrap of a memory of something shared between us; a stolen moment of happiness. Something I can hold on to, carry forward with me. My search is in vain, because I can’t find any. Not a single one.

At least, not any that make me smile.

I’m going to consider this a lesson though. Not one I would have chosen to learn or that I feel I needed to learn; but one that, strangely has served me well all these years. How it feels to be on the receiving end of someone who is emotionally closed off to those who only want to love them.

Something I’ve taught my children not to do to anyone, ever.

Because everybody needs to be given attention, deserves love and to be loved.

Even bratty kid sisters.

#family #bigsister #placeoutofmind #lessonlearned

Hi! Remember me? I’m that little girl that you used to drag outside with you to play dinky cars under the big maple tree in our front yard. The one who always had to be Mac, even though secretly I wanted to be Joe, just once!

Remember that?

You were playing with me, paying attention to me; so, I didn’t push it. I just enjoyed our time.

Remember the hay forts? I was always in awe of how you could make the fort so cozy and sturdy and so very excited that you would take the time to do something so amazing AND that I’d get to play in it WITH you!

You. My big brother. How I idolized you!

Oh, the hours we’d spend in that barn, in that hay… If I close my eyes I can almost smell it now; just thinking back to those lazy, warm summer days. So carefree. So unaware. So happy.

The treks back in the woods to cut wood for the winter, remember those? On the tractor? And remember, when Dad felled that tree and then panicked because he couldn’t find me and thought I’d gotten in the way?

But I was ok, playing with the kerf you’d given me from the cut dad had made, using it as a plate and the saw dust as food. Completely unaware a huge tree had missed landing on me by a couple feet.

Remember that time we tried making…. taffy, was it? Tapping the maple trees and boiling down the syrup…? You were so proud Dad let you make such a huge bonfire in the driveway to put the big pot over. Then pouring the sticky stuff over the snow to harden. It was so STICKY and so YUMMY!

Gosh, it was so, so long ago the memory is fuzzy, but it’s there. I can still see it all like it was just last week.

One thing’s for certain, I sure do remember the sledding ‘luge’ you created that one winter, down the side of the road. The hours you put in making it smooth and icy, walking up and down the hill, so meticulously checking your work. Pouring water on it, sledding down again and again to make it flat and level; and all so my friends and I could sit on your back on the crazy carpet and slide down. We went so fast!!!

Then of course we’d have to walk back up the hill, but I didn’t mind, not one bit. Because you were paying attention to me.

I recently reconnected with my friend from back then and she remembers that too! In fact, she said it’s one of her fondest memories.

That’s all I have now. My memories. Memories of how it used to be; of how it will never be again. Forty plus years can make strangers out of family, turn what was once known into something strange. Foreign.

After all, that’s a whole lifetime, practcally.

I want you to know I don’t hold any ill will toward you. I understand why you did what you did, or rather… what you didn’t do. And that’s ok. Life can be tough sometimes and we can’t always think of others in our times of grief. I grieved too. I needed my big brother. Still do in some ways. But that’s ok. I'm managing.

I am glad I have my memories, though. Time may erode them little by little, but I will always know they happened, and they will always make me smile.

Memories of you. My big brother.

#family #memories #timeoutofmind

“Holy crap! Did you see that?” Clive laughed, breathing heavily.

“That was too damn close, buddy! What the hell were you thinking?” Phil reached down

and helped his friend up off the sidewalk. Picking up the broken halves of his skateboard.

“You know as well as I do that nothing can happen to me, I’m totally invincible.” Clive said with an air of bravado.

“You’re totally full of shit, that’s what you are. Look at your damn skateboard. That could have been your head, man!” Phil shook his head at his friend.

Ever since he’d found that strange stone Clive had been acting weird. Taking chances with his life, testing the limits. Definitely not acting like himself. Today it was skitching, two days ago it was playing chicken with a speeding train, the week before it was tying a cement block to his feet and jumping in a swimming pool to see how long he could hold his breath. Phil had to admit, that had been pretty awesome. Six whole minutes! He’d never seen anything like it!

*

They had been swimming at the quarry when they noticed something glowing under the water. At first they just assumed it was a trick of the setting sun on the water, but once the sun set and the glow hadn’t faded they realized it was something else.

Clive dove down to check it out and came up with a green stone, smooth and square, about the size of a match box. It shone from within with a faint greenish glow that seemed to become dimmer when held and once covered the glow disappeared completely.

“Let me see that.” Phil said and Clive handed him the stone, the two of them treading water side by side.

He hefted it in his hand, and it was lighter than he expected it to be based on its size, which struck him as odd. It felt weird in his hand too, foreign. Bringing it closer to his face to get a better look, he could see a design like three lines or squiggles on one side and characters or maybe they were words or something on the other side. But not from any language either of them had ever seen before. “I don’t know man, this is like some sorta Jumanji shit or something.” He said, rearing his arm back to toss it but Clive grabbed his arm and stopped him. Taking the stone from him.

“What’s the harm in keeping it? Maybe we can figure out what these markings say, I mean, it could be worth something man. Don’t toss it.” Clive tucked the strange stone in the pocket of his swim trunks and started swimming toward the rocks where they’d left their clothes and bikes.

Phil followed slowly, his arms rhythmically cutting through the water with smooth, even strokes as his mind puzzled out where the stone could have come from or how it came to be there in the quarry. And the biggest question was why they had never noticed it there before in the numerous times they’d swam in this same place over the past several years?

Clive hoisted himself out of the water onto the warm flat rock, reaching down to check the stone was still in his pocket. Something was telling him this stone was somehow special, it was like a voice in his head but not a speaking one. More like a sense of something, something sentient that was speaking to him. Telling him that as long as he had ownership of the stone, kept it on his person, nothing could ever harm him. But it wasn’t like anything intelligible he could articulate or explain to Phil. He just knew he needed to keep the stone and that it needed to be in his possession at all times and he would never come to any harm. It was a weird sensation, but not uncomfortable. Rather welcoming and soothing.

Phil pulled himself out of the water beside Clive, reaching for his towel he dried off quickly then grabbed his phone from his jeans pocket.

“Hey Clive, can I see that stone again for a minute? I want to take a picture of it, see if we can look it up maybe.” Phil was looking at his phone, calling up the camera app and didn’t notice the possessive look that passed across Clive’s face or how he instinctively reached for his pocket as if to protect the stone.

Looking up, Phil extended his hand in expectation, meeting Clive’s gaze. Clive blinked a few times, his expression unreadable; but he handed the stone over without hesitation and proceeded to dry off and change out of his swim trunks.

Phil took several pictures hoping to catch the glow on camera, but the stone was no longer glowing. In fact, it was a solid dark jade green colour. Oddly irregular, but not at all the mystical stone it had seemed earlier. Looking closer there was no evidence it held any sort of inner light, but just the fact that it wasn’t heavy lent to the hunch that maybe it was hollow.

Before he could examine it more, Clive snatched it from his hand with a strange chuckle.

“Geez man hand it over already, you got your pictures.”

Phil’s head snapped up, surprised at such deliberate rudeness and noticed the smile on Clive’s lips didn’t touch his eyes. Phil faked a laugh, pushing his friend he grabbed his jeans to change.

Later that night, he sent the pictures off to an online friend who he thought might be able to help decipher the markings. His reply said he would have an answer in a few days.

*

Clive had been indestructible ever since that day. Much to Phil’s resentment and bitterness. As he looked down at the ruined skateboard in his hands, he could feel his anger boiling up inside.

He’d never say anything to Clive, but he secretly wished he’d dived for the stone, that it was him who was testing the limits and becoming popular. Clive was already popular, everyone knew him and wanted to be his friend and hang out with him. Yet he chose to hang around with Phil. You’d think that would make Phil popular too, wouldn’t you? Phil did. Phil thought being friends with Clive would guarantee his spot with the popular kids. But Clive didn’t care about any of that, Clive didn’t want to be popular, he didn’t want to because he already was popular! He didn’t know what it was like to be ignored or unseen. But Phil did, he’d been invisible his whole life.

As the two of them headed toward the park, Phil’s phone chimed to let him know a message had come in, he reached in his pocket to pull it out and check it. He stopped at the entrance to the park dropping the broken halves of Clive’s skateboard in the garbage can, pausing to read his phone message. Clive kept walking, mumbling something about needing a new board.

The message read as follows:

That stone is an odd one. Where’d you say you found it? Wherever it was I’d put it right back, that thing carries a curse, dude! That is if you believe in that sort of thing, of course. Near as I can decipher, it was supposed to be like a good luck charm or something but was used for gain and wealth, so the luck was corrupted. If the possessor encounters a threat on their life, the stone protects but only for a set amount of times. It doesn’t specify exactly but there are three marks on one side. So I think maybe it means ‘three strikes you’re out’, sorta thing? Either way, be careful dude. And hey, when's the next D&D session, I've got a new campaign I want to run? Get back to me.

“You comin’ Phil? I have an idea for another stunt I’ve always wanted to try.” Clive yelled back as he rounded the cement column and entered the park out of Phil’s view.

There was a sudden flash and a popping noise, Phil rushed around the column and into the park entrance to Clive to see what it was.

But Clive was gone.

The only thing left where Phil guessed he had been standing, was a patch of burned grass and the dark jade green stone, which was glowing again.

Waving away the small tuft of smoke hanging in the air Phil bent and picked up the stone; brushing it off and looking closely he noticed the words: ‘Three time’s the charm’.

He looked around to see if anyone had seen what happened and not seeing anyone, he shrugged, pocketing the stone.

Popularity, here I come! I mean, who the hell believes in curses? he thought.

Did it ever cross your mind?

Flitting in and back out, like dust motes in waning sunlight.

Thoughts begin and end without a word spoken,

Much like a breeze along the forest floor,

The stirring makes a noise but there are no ears to hear it.

Does my pleading voice follow suit?

Falling upon uncaring ears above a cold heart.

Although loose lips smile, the eyes hold the truth.

I am numb to your torment, for your hold is no longer.

For love now resides where once was disdain,

Down here in the gutter.