Cindy
I can't believe it but it is November again. Last November I wrote a blog post every day to help me remember and recognize the many blessings in my life and to renew my gratitude for those experiences. I've decided to take up that challenge again, but with a twist. This year each post will be about a specific person and either an experience I've had with them for which I am grateful or why I am grateful for this person in my life (and in no particular order). So here goes!
I have four older sisters and the one closest in age to me is Cindy. She is five years older than I am and I'd say our younger years were characterized by her ignoring me and therefore me trying to get her attention by being annoying. My favorite move was stealing the book in her hand and running as fast as I could. Unfortunately, that usually ending in her pummeling me and then getting in trouble with my parents which only then made her mad at me but hey, at least she acknowledged my existence for a little while.
My two favorite childhood memories I have associated with her are how Country Roads was somehow our song and we would sing it together a lot. I even have super cute video evidence that this is true. The other is when we were on one of our long cross-country drives and she kept putting her feet up on my bench in our conversion van, which of course I didn't like. I ended up naming her feet and playing with them like dolls until she got pretty annoyed and moved them. It was my first intellectual triumph that I can recall and probably the first time I actually got her to do what I wanted her to do so definitely a big moment in my young life. Frankie and Rosie were their names, by the way.
One of my best experiences with Cindy was when my parents took us to New York City for her graduation gift. I was 13 and allowed to tag along, which I later found out annoyed her, but I was thrilled. It was my first time in NYC and we got to see four Broadway musicals. Cindy really wanted to see Miss Saigon but my parents weren't sure it was appropriate so they went to see it one night while Cindy and I went on our own to see Damn Yankees. I'll never forget going up the escalator with her to the theater and talking in a British accent and feeling so grown up. It was the first time we had done anything so fun together, just the two of us, where she seemed to enjoy my company and I wasn't simply her annoying little sister.
I'll never forget how nice Cindy was to me when she got home from her mission and I was a senior in high school. I more than once overslept for seminary and she was supposed to take a shower at a certain time to get ready for work but when she found me still sleeping she would get me up and let me take a super quick one first so that I could make it to my early-morning church class. My parents were living in Idaho at the time and she was the one who came to my senior awards banquet, my seminary graduation and my senior dance recital where she left two roses on my car seat afterwards. I was grateful for her support.
Cindy and I drove across the country with her two friends after I graduated from high school on our way out to college. I loved feeling so grown up; finally one of her peers. My first year at college was her last and she had me over for dinner, we shared a car so she would take me grocery shopping, we took a class together and we even got to write a paper together (which we totally aced). It was the first and only time we were ever in the same school at the same time and I loved it.
I think I spent a lot of my life trying to be like Cindy. She is the reason I like Erasure, En Vogue and The Indigo Girls. She is smart, competitive and funny and also a calm and kind mother, a stalwart church leader and a good listener. I'm grateful to have her for a sister and for how our relationship has evolved as we've become adults. She has always been a good example to me and I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today without her.
I have four older sisters and the one closest in age to me is Cindy. She is five years older than I am and I'd say our younger years were characterized by her ignoring me and therefore me trying to get her attention by being annoying. My favorite move was stealing the book in her hand and running as fast as I could. Unfortunately, that usually ending in her pummeling me and then getting in trouble with my parents which only then made her mad at me but hey, at least she acknowledged my existence for a little while.
My two favorite childhood memories I have associated with her are how Country Roads was somehow our song and we would sing it together a lot. I even have super cute video evidence that this is true. The other is when we were on one of our long cross-country drives and she kept putting her feet up on my bench in our conversion van, which of course I didn't like. I ended up naming her feet and playing with them like dolls until she got pretty annoyed and moved them. It was my first intellectual triumph that I can recall and probably the first time I actually got her to do what I wanted her to do so definitely a big moment in my young life. Frankie and Rosie were their names, by the way.
One of my best experiences with Cindy was when my parents took us to New York City for her graduation gift. I was 13 and allowed to tag along, which I later found out annoyed her, but I was thrilled. It was my first time in NYC and we got to see four Broadway musicals. Cindy really wanted to see Miss Saigon but my parents weren't sure it was appropriate so they went to see it one night while Cindy and I went on our own to see Damn Yankees. I'll never forget going up the escalator with her to the theater and talking in a British accent and feeling so grown up. It was the first time we had done anything so fun together, just the two of us, where she seemed to enjoy my company and I wasn't simply her annoying little sister.
I'll never forget how nice Cindy was to me when she got home from her mission and I was a senior in high school. I more than once overslept for seminary and she was supposed to take a shower at a certain time to get ready for work but when she found me still sleeping she would get me up and let me take a super quick one first so that I could make it to my early-morning church class. My parents were living in Idaho at the time and she was the one who came to my senior awards banquet, my seminary graduation and my senior dance recital where she left two roses on my car seat afterwards. I was grateful for her support.
Cindy and I drove across the country with her two friends after I graduated from high school on our way out to college. I loved feeling so grown up; finally one of her peers. My first year at college was her last and she had me over for dinner, we shared a car so she would take me grocery shopping, we took a class together and we even got to write a paper together (which we totally aced). It was the first and only time we were ever in the same school at the same time and I loved it.
I think I spent a lot of my life trying to be like Cindy. She is the reason I like Erasure, En Vogue and The Indigo Girls. She is smart, competitive and funny and also a calm and kind mother, a stalwart church leader and a good listener. I'm grateful to have her for a sister and for how our relationship has evolved as we've become adults. She has always been a good example to me and I certainly wouldn't be the person I am today without her.
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