Essay About Family: A Portrait of a Sister

A Portrait of a Sister

Sitting at my desk, trying to organize all my server sales reports from work, photo-copied papers, coupons, gift-certificates and important receipts, I start laughing to myself at how much I am like my sister. The sound of her soft voice echoes through my mind, “ Lee, photo-copy all these documents, and don’t forget to keep your receipts.” That is my sister’s fetish; anything important must be photocopied, unless a sin. It’s those little things she says and does that I have always teased her about that I find myself doing now. I glance up looking on my desk for the FAFSA document, and the picture of my sister and me driving the cardboard school bus catches my eye.

January 1988

Sitting in my living room, my grandma and mom were taking down the Christmas decorations, and putting them in cardboard boxes. My sister always had my grandma’s creativity, which they both passed on to me. My sister turned to me and said, “ I have a fun project for us, Lee.” Rolling my eyes and looking back over my shoulder, to my sister, I said, “Oh, no way. Last time you had a fun project I ended up having my hands tied behind my back.” She informed me that it would be really fun, she swore. The whole week we secretly stashed cardboard boxes in the closet in our room, and then we cut out all different shapes. The shapes together were going to make up a school bus. Since my mom is a schoolteacher we stole her paint, and later that week we painted the cardboard yellow. Two weeks later, we presented our project to my mom and grandma at dinner. We were so proud of ourselves.

Looking back now, I remember that the school bus was our favorite toy for that week. I also remember that the following week my sister had a new “project”.

May 1996

My first week of JV Kickline tryouts. I come home and say, “We have a mission on our hands.” I tell her it is now time to make me the next member of the Bethpage JV Kickline team. During that whole week of tryouts, I am practically in house arrest. I think this is when my sister really teaches me that no one is perfect and she shows me how to use my strongest strength.