My Sister, Rachel.

Best friends since, like, forever!

Rachel had beautiful features and a beautiful complexion.

Genesis Chapter 29-7

I don’t remember it, but apparently, I was impressed when my sister Rachel, was born. I looked at the microscopic human nestling in my mother’s arms and said, (much to my mother’s gratification), “that’s AMAZING!”

Friendly relations were quickly established. Here was a human who saw the world as I saw it. When I suggested that we collect all the newly cut grass from the lawn and toss it into Mum’s freshly mopped entrance way, ( why, oh why did this seem like such a good idea?), she helped me collect a good two buckets worth of sodden green grass for the task.

And when I suggested the cat needed a hair cut, she clung tenaciously to that unfortunate beast while I denuded his tail.

She also proved agreeable to having her face coated entirely in ceramic paint when I turned her into a clown. I raided my aunt’s pottery paint collection for this mammoth task and worked with commendable purpose while my mother indulged in a light afternoon nap. And Rachel bore me no ill will when my mother and aunt found my work and wailed that she might have to spend her entire life as a clown, due to the indelible nature of the paints I had used. (She was redeemed from this fate by a bottle of eucalyptus oil that my quick witted aunt applied.)

My sister is probably one of the most kind, maternal women I’ve ever met. While I used her as a human canvas for clown painting, she was considerably kinder to the siblings beneath us. She would ‘read’ endless stories to our brothers before she was even literate. She would make up tales to go with the pictures.

When she turned nineteen, she embarked (literally), on charity work. She boarded a ship that ran through pirate infested waters to land in a country that had been ravished by war. When she was there, she divided her time between working in an orphanage and hauling unexploded bombs out of wells. Strange to say, she seemed to enjoy this a great deal, and ever since has always been trotting off to this or that part of the globe to help out in some crisis.

Apparently, I got it right when I first met this formidable woman as a howling lump in my mother’s arms.

She really is amazing.