Rarely does a day go by that I don’t talk to my sister. She’s my very best friend but lives exactly 1,377 miles away from me door to door, so our phones have a pretty big job in bridging those miles. Nowadays, we talk during naptimes or after the littles have gone to sleep for the night, or when we’re in the car and have a quiet moment. Somedays we have “Skinny-marink-a-dink-a-dink” days where we call just to say hi, “in the morning and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening, and underneath the moon.” If you were to look at our phone bills, most likely you’d see one or two Neal Dickson or Bruce and Becky Home to every seven or eight Sarah Hunts. But only because she’s my sister, and because we're home all day with babies and not much else. Besides, if you’ve ever had a sister, you know it’s not a favorites thing, it’s a necessity. An “I-gotta-call-my-sister” thing “and-tell-her-all-about/cry-about/laugh-about/bitch-about-something-because-no-one-else-in-the-world-will-listen-cry-laugh-or-bitch-like-she-will” kind of thing. Again, it’s a necessity.
Sisters make everything better. She’s four (okay, she’ll say not four, but I’m rounding up here, people) years older than me, and she’s my hero. We’ve never really fought like other sisters I know. Sure, I’d steal and ruin a shirt of hers, or rob her giant yellow crayon of all the quarters it held so I could go to the drugstore, or she’d spy on me while I was playing pretend radio dj and jump out and start making fun of me...but we never stayed mad at each other longer than a good scream in a pillow lasted. It’s probably because of our non-confrontational personalities; or if you asked some shrink, they’d say it’s because we lost our parents at such a young age, and had to grow up so young, that the petty normal teenage girl stuff didn’t get to us like it got to other sisters. Something like that.
But Sarah has always been the older, wiser sister that I called for advice or rushed to for a hug. She’s always taken care of me the best she could. She taught me how to drive a car and how to put on makeup (granted, we both failed at this, but she tried is the point). She was my mom when I didn’t have one. But the thing that I never considered, being the youngest, was that she didn’t have a mom either. And it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I learned that after Dad died, she counted all the money in her bank account, considered foregoing college, and was ready to do whatever she had to to be my legal guardian. Luckily this consideration was brief thanks to the McNeills who stepped up so she didn’t have to, and they played the role of our loving guardians beautifully. To them we are both eternally grateful. But the point is, Sarah was ready if I needed her to be. She would have sacrificed everything to be the mom I needed.
She was with me the day I became a mom, the day my life changed forever. I watched her stare into my daughter’s eyes with tears streaming from her own. I was, and still am, desperate to know what she was thinking those first few hours of Harper’s life. In my heart, I know it was pride and joy streaming from those tears after witnessing the birth of the first “Atchley” baby. But I also think there was grief, knowing that our mom and dad weren’t there to witness it too.
I’ll never forget in May of ’95, after Sarah left with her 8th grade grad date, all dressed up thanks to Mary Beth Young, Dad ran from the living room and buried his head in the couch pillow, and cried. “I just wish your mom were here to see her.” I think Sarah’s tears were a little bit of that too when Harper was born.
So when it was finally Sarah’s turn to become a mom for real, you can imagine the excitement, anxiety, sadness, and love that I felt flying to San Diego to meet sweet Donevan Marcus.
Sarah was meant to be a mom. She was such a natural from the moment she held her first born son. She was a nursing machine from the get go, walking around, no Boppy necessary within the first 3 days. She had just the right amount of calm and fear, a difficult dance for most new moms.
I spent a week there, watching her, trying to help where I could, mostly trying to keep Harper out of her way. But I wanted to be for her what she was for me after Harper was born: an outlet, someone to show my crazy to, someone to cry to when the post pregnancy hormones and sheer exhaustion got the best of me, someone to help me shower and shave my legs after a long birth day. She was all of those things and more for me; she was my sister, mom, doula, and best friend...it was important to me to be those things for her.
I didn’t really accomplish all of what I wanted to do while I was there, what with also trying to be a mom to my own 9 month old, but for the first time I was able to help her in a way that I hadn’t been able to before. I had done this thing, this new mom dance. I had something she didn’t have, a tiny bit of experience. After all the late night phone calls and advice over boys, college, finances, life, where she got to use her experience to counsel me, it was finally my turn to answer the call. I had tips and tricks to share, a tiny bit of wisdom. But most importantly during those desperate phone calls that all new moms make, it is my job, no my privilege, to tell her that she’s doing an amazing job, that I’m so proud of her, that her son is the luckiest boy in the world to have her as a mom. I should know. I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have her as my sister.
Happy Birthday, Sarah (okay, day after, I got distracted). I am the person I am today because I had you as a sister, to guide me, love me, and support me. You are an amazing friend, wife, and now mother. I am so proud of you, and I wish Mom and Dad were here to see you in action. I love you.
