Today my baby sister turns 35 years old.
And my hand to God, I remember every second of when my dad woke me up that night…
“Misti, we’re taking Mommy to the hospital to get your baby!”
“snarfuffle sniff fnoork…mmmmkay. If I get scared, I’ll just call Meme Mid to come over here with me”
grown man giggles. or snorts.
“she’s already here, Misti. We’re not going to just leave you by yourself”
“snarfuffle ffffngoork sniff.. Mmmmkay. go get my baby”
My dad had built me two twin beds. They were super tall back then, but probably only slightly above waist high on an adult. Wonderbaby has one of them in his room now. Back then, there was always confusion between my brain and my bladder somewhere in the night. We had lots of pseudo explainations for it, surgerys that went awry, deep sleeping…whatever. I peed the bed.
a lot.
Meme lived a few streets away from us then and came right over when they called her. Mom’s water had broken (Dad thought SHE peed the bed from all that Damned Watermelon) so their bed was wet. I’d already peed the bed in the extra one. Poor Meme didn’t have a dry bed in the house save the one I was sleeping in, so she just gave up, made a pot of coffee and started doing laundry. (that was her way.)
I also remember naming my sister.
We were eating Robert’s Burgers (we didn’t become a Johnnie’s family until Mom married into the family) one night and as those greasy delicious onion fried burgers do…they tend to fall apart. We were sitting in our avacado green kitchen at our little circle table and we were talking baby names. I’m sure They were talking baby names and I just happened to insert my opinion. (that’s my way)
Mom was set on M’leia. or Maleea or something.
I said NO. baby should be called Taryn. Cuz lookie here! My hamburger’s tearing!
My hand to God, I remember saying those words.
And to my credit, my parents didn’t choke on their coney’s and slaw. They just kind of went…uh huh. thats a preeeeeeeeeety name…*eyeroll-the drama comes from YOUR side of the family-eyeroll*
When she was barely a minute old, I don’t know how old she was, but the kid had no hair and no teeth…I fed her oreos. Mom came in and freaked out (that’s her way). In fairness, I was probably this close to killing the kid. I have a history of doing harm by trying to do good…ask me about the litter of baby kittens I baptized once…
Growing up we shared a room. Shared a bed. We held conversations with each other in our sleep…kind of like those freaky mutatnt twin genetics…but different. She always had the softest, warmest hands and I would always try to hold her hand when I was falling asleep. She would have NONE of that and just GANK back her hand, sometimes hitting me or herself in the process of trying to extricate herself from her dork sister. (that’s her way)
In the summer, our dad would pick the hottest mother effing time of day and then make us go outside and pick up the rotten apples off the ground so that he could mow. (that’s his way)It was our version of picking cotton. We hated it. And hated each other while we did it. Then we got good at taking nice long water breaks and bringing water to the other one…To this day we hate the thought of any kind of tree that drops things on the ground.
She is the mother of my beautiful batshitcrazy brilliant and HIGHLY entertaining nephews, and has a husband that with a handful of softly spoken words, can bring the both of us to our knees with laughter and a little tee tee coming out while at the Incredible Pizza place.
Taryn Larae was born 35 years ago today. She is my rock. my stability. my belly aching fart inducing laughter. Since she moved away, I miss her with an ache that is dull and throbbing every single day, but would never ever trade her following her dreams. I’m the lucky one because I get to share in the life that she has built. We call each other Sisser…that’s just our way. 
Happy Birthday Sisser…I love you.
Misti Ridiculous 
