Happy Birthday, Sis

I love my sister. Karen Marie Clair Van Wagner Agar. She understands family and what it means better than anyone. She misses my Dad everyday even though he passed away almost thirty years ago. She and my Mother lived together for decades and Karen did not kill my Mother. She and my Mother lived together for decades and Karen did not kill me.

Karen is one of my biggest fans. She survived having to take her little brother to the movies so Dad and Mom could have matinees. When my arm was broken in a fight (in first grade…this was Keansburg, after all), she dished out revenge on the culprit for all the residents of Maple and Main to see. On the sibling scale, she covered for more of my shenanigans than I did of hers….and she had a hell of a lot. She was in my wedding party and I was in hers.

We fought. We fought long and hard. We fought over why she was so mean to me. We fought over why I was such a pain in the ass to her. We fought over why she only had to wash the dishes and I had to dry them AND put them away. We fought over who was going to clean the house before Mom came home from work. We fought over if I really stole the dimes from her penny loafers. (They were PENNY loafers, asshole!) We fought over who won the last fight and who would win the next. Our love survived how much she pissed me off as a kid and that says a lot about love.

We huddled together like two people in a storm at times. She let me creep into her room at the darkest times cause she needed me. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) We asked serious questions like who we would go with and why when they finally split. (They never did but Sis ended up with Mom anyway. Neener Neener Neener). We played Mouse Trap, Booby Trap, 500 Rummy, freeze tag, hide and seek, and roof tag (you had to see it to believe it).

She is outspoken about how proud she is of me. Yet she is the example of what home means. If I knocked on her door today, she would take me in. That is her way. She is family incarnate. I think it was Mark Twain that said a man is not really a man until his father dies. That sounded heartless to me….right up until my father died and I found out it was true. I was suddenly it. I didn’t have the place to go for advice….I WAS the place to go for advice. How the hell did that happen? Yet, I realize now that home was still an option for me. Home…that place where they take you in no matter what you did. Home was there…….and always has been……and always will be…..because of Sis.

I love her. I honest to truly love her. Dad said that family matters. He said it was what made the world safe and right. Family….stick together……get along. His daughter got the message and lives it. I tried to run away from home. My Sister never really let me. I understand that now. I love her.

Happy Birthday, Sis