Sherry's Birthday Wish to Me

• Listening to Chicago 8 tracks in the old blue car
• Just knowing you are out there when I need you on instant message, or knowing I need to call Amy if you are missing for 2 days
• Fighting over the album jacket on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, so we could both read the word as it played for the first time
• Red and blue high low shag carpet--yuk
• I will always be your Tiny Dancer; if you will be my Hercules
• Sitting in my driveway and saying a prayer together for Daddy
• Funeral for a Friend playing through the screen window as you refinish Granny’s dresser
• Throwing milk in your face because I was mad at you
• Naming newborn kitten found in the old washer--“Everything is beautiful” except Loudmouth
• Driving for 14 hours in one weekend, to see you turn 50
• 12 noon every Saturday---American Bandstand—“Oh Mandy”
• Swapping out Prater kids on Sunday afternoon till church that night
• Playing kick the can under the large street light in the church parking lot and watching out for bats
• Picking the red berries off my dress on the way home from church while eating the remaining “crackers” left in the communion trays
• Digging a hole to China and only finding a yellow electric cord running to the smoke house
• Holding my hand as they deliver to you the flag that covered Daddy’s casket
• Giving you credit for my first set of stitches, as you hit me in the head with a hoe as we dug for worms.
• Standing in the living room and yelling out the door as you turn the TV antenna until the “snow” went away.
• Alpha and Omega, first on, last off—0 dark thirty bus ride to school
• Lying in the floor at Granny’s as we watch the Brady Bunch—first run
• Following you to Mama’s grave site as you drove Daddy to the cemetery and see all the policemen standing at attention as we passed through each inter-section.
• Knowing that I have a loving, caring and wonderful sister-in-law that will always be there for me and my family.
• And finally be able to say, “You are old”….because you will always be 3 years older than me.

I love you.