dual personalities

Today is my dear DP’s birthday. There is nothing that makes me feel older than my little sister reaching an age milestone, even hitting that milestone myself! We are getting to be such old ladies!

Here she is on a dig in Jordan back in 1985 when she was a twenty-something graduate student, back when we had waistlines and tucked in our shirts.

You may have gathered that my sister is the intellectual in the family and the most like our mother in that respect. Our mother was very proud of her, traveling all over the world in the pursuit of knowledge. She lived to see her go on to Yale and the Babylonian Collection, but she did not see her married and the mother of three boys. She would have been equally proud of that. She would have loved that she is a college professor. And she would have been very happy to know that she is a elder in her church.

I have always been proud of my little sister as well. She did the things I wasn’t able to do–she made the varsity field hockey team! She was never timid.

Well, we have been lucky to have each other and to support each other through the years, because, you know…

…there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands

(Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”)

Perhaps we are beginning to totter a bit, but we’re still standing! Join me in a toast to my much loved dual personality!