Happy Birthday Margsey

Tomorrow is my sister Margaret’s birthday. For the longest time it was just me and Margaret. We wore sister dresses and tortured each other. We were fairly old, 8 1/2 and 5, when we got our surprise third sister Janet. Despite Janet’s arrival Margaret was always my “little sister.” I am sure it was not a position she prized.

Margaret’s birthday is just a week after Janet’s so she lost having a whole birthday month to herself. Top it off, her birthday was right after the first day of school which was not the most celebrated thing in a class of new kids you hardly know.

Margaret has always been more stylish than any of us. So I can imagine it was quite a horror to her that she had to wear my hand-me-downs. It was made even worse by having to wear what looked like the same dress for three or four years because she would first have hers and then my matching dress.

The worst thing about being the “little” sister is when we got two of anything she automatically got the smaller one – Like easter baskets. The Easter bunny would leave me a big basket and Margaret a little one. They might have had the same amount of candy, but I don’t think so. Especially since I always got up earlier and rearranged the candy giving her all the stuff I didn’t like, which she also did not like.

Why give us two different sized baskets? She could tell mine was bigger. Why not give us two that were the same size, but different colors. When Janet came around I think all the baskets were equal, but the damage of the small basket years was done.

I want to say I’m sorry to Margaret for anything I ever did that made her feel like the “little” sister. This is Margaret’s first Birthday as a married lady. I hope that Pete is treating her like a Queen.

I can’t fix the childhood issues, but at least I can get as many people as possible to wish Margaret a Happy Birthday.