December 5, 2008
Twenty-one years ago today, I was eight years old and I was a new big sister.
I remember we lived in a house that had three sinks in the upstairs bathroom and there was this big oval bathtub and everything in it was blue. And when you were old enough to sit up, we would take baths together sometimes. That was the huge house in Durham on 
Route 108. It had one of those cool doors that could open just on the top, or just on the bottom, or both together.
Then I remember the time Mom went out somewhere for the night and Dad was in charge. And he put you in your little blue jammies with the little mittens attached to the sleeves. And once he had you all ready for bed, you started screaming and crying and I think I probably said something along the lines of “He doesn’t cry like that for Ma.” And we thought that you just missed Mom, and we put you to bed, and you still cried. Then Mom came home. And you were st
ill crying. And she went to check on you and it turned out your little thumb didn’t get through the sleeve and was being pushed against your little wrist. Mom fixed it and you went right to sleep.
Then we moved to the house on Pudding Hill Road, and you started walking. Gram lived with us then, and you weren’t any older than two the day we let you run around without your diaper on, and you pooped a little rabbit-sized poopy trail all through the house and it was hilarious! Dad got a coonskin hat for Christmas, and I got a basketball and you were the most excited about the box my basketball came in, and you climbed in and wore it and you were so cute! And our eccentric home-schooling relatives, Aunt Rainy and Uncle Bill, gave you these weird balls that looked like they were made out of brightly dyed hair. We all got the biggest kick out of those things!
We used to go rummage around the dump right down from the road from us, and one day we found this sweet rusty old-school Radio Flyer Wagon, and we took it home and rode that thing down the big hill behind our Pudding Hill House. We also used to go sledding with Aaron and Jonathan too. You loved your cars though, once you got older. And you would always say how you would have a police car and a fire engine and a truck and a tractor wh
en you grew up.
We moved to Fox Point Road in Newington and it had a four-car garage with an apartment over it that was rented to someone I don’t remember. And the carpet in the living room was the exact 
same color as a pile of spilled fish food. A lady who did daycare in her home down the road from us took care of you, and her dog had puppies and we bought one and named her Sadie May Jangles. You were around three or four years old when we started living there. It was right across the street to this pond that had a lot of snapping turtles in it, but in the winter we’d skate on it. And it was right next to this awesome river that we’d go sit in sometimes. And Dad would take Sadie and us on walks to the peninsula and there would be horseshoe crabs all over the beach. And he would take us on little hikes along trails through fields and through the woods, and all along the way he would show us cool things. Like how these certain plants, when pulled from the ground, would stay attached at the root, making a length of natural twine. Then he would find a strong short stick, and a triangular rock, and he would tie the rock to the stick with the rooty twine and give us homemade play hatchets to walk the trail with.
Then Mom dared to leave us in the hands of Dad once again, as she and Jane went to Mexico for a whole week. And we ate out pretty much every meal of the day, and we got to sleep in Mom and Dad’s room every night, even if we didn’t have nightmares. Then Dad went and bough
t a Nintendo. And towards the end of the week, I got sick in Mom and Dad’s bed, and you know what I threw up? A whole pickle from a McDonald’s cheeseburger. It was gross. And your clothes were the perfect size for a puppy, and sometimes I would put your little tuxedo on the dog, and Mom would get annoyed.
One time we were riding around with Mom (we used to go on rides all the time) in the little blue Hyundai and we went over one of those hills that tickles your insides, and you said “OOOooo! It feels like you threw my pee-pee out the window…and then the car ran it over!” That was a freakin’ riot!
Finally we made it to Nottingham and I was a total bitch for about eight years running, and you claim to not remember, but we all have that terrible video verification of my wretched doings – a full-length feature film of an interrogation of a seven year-old. We would go over to the Louisos’ house and make forts in their basement and throw records Frisbee-style in an epic battle of girls versus boys or oldest versus youngest…until we got in trouble. Then we went sledding with Joanna and Zack down “Tailbone Heeeeeiiiilllllll”. We stole the cushions from Mom and Dad’s couch (yo
u know, the one that matched the booger chair) and forgot them outside on Jeremy and Bethany’s swing set, and then the pillows got rained on and subsequently froze to the wood once it got cold. We managed to pry it away, only to throw it down “Tailbone Hill” so it could freeze at the bottom of the hill making a wicked sweet jump once it snowed. I got my license and got to drive around the Ford Escort, and I took you to Karate and back…and some of that trip might have been through the woods. Ian came into our lives, and you were wicked close friends with Jeremy Lemay. I was beginning to apply to colleges, so Mom and Dad signed me up for an interview with the army, which you thought was really cool. Cool enough to put on your full fatigues and hide under the couch, then the table – spying on the doomed-from-the-start interview. You were the only one who lightened that situation for me – otherwise I would have “run away” on pure principal alone! You got into dirt bike racing and four-wheeling – and you got me into that stuff 
too! I would go and see some of your races when I wasn’t being a total beatch.
You were 10 when I went to college. I missed a lot of your teenage years, more than I wish I hadn’t. I had you and Bill’s brother Nate come stay over when I lived on Gainsborough Street (the Columbus Ave.) in Boston.
You followed your heart when it came to your professional future, and you went to school in Canada to get your degree so you could install, into cars, pimp sound-systems and other cool electric complexities I could never understand. I remember how excited I was to go visit you up there – and Kristen and I flew up to 
Jane’s, and she drove us the rest of the way, and we had a wicked great time there. Even though we sat through an entire Medieval Castle experience when it was the retardedest retard that ever retarded as far as performance dining is concerned.
Now you are 21 years old and I can still remember the little boy with the blond bowl cut and the teeth he hadn’t grown into yet. And your wide blue eyes. You never lost those baby-blues! Or that blond hair for that matter. And I couldn’t be more proud of the man you have grown into. I can’t believe it’s been 21 years together.
But mostly, I can’t believe I made it those eight years without you.
I love you – Happy Birthday.
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