Big bad sister

I have recently come to realize that I was a horrible big sister.

Not that I am horrible now. I mean, I think my brother and I have a good relationship, now.

I'm talking about when I was little. Well, not quite little. But from the time that I was like, 2, until the moment I left for college at 18, I was just a jerk.

Not that my brother was an angel. Keith was slithery and sneaky and quiet. He was infamous for lying or whispering something cruel and then snickering as the loud big sister got snagged for his initiation. But overall, I was cruel, and I think it is time that I come out to the world (or at least my few, faithful blog readers who have read this far into my post) and admit to everyone what I have always known. When it comes to big sisters, I sucked.

When I was 4 and my brother was 2, we lived in a rented house in Thorton, Illinois. In the backyard was an old swingset, a lot like the picture of this swingset on the left.

Here's how mean I was. And please, remember, I have confessed this sin (actually, sins) many times. The Lord has forgiven me, I think Keith has forgiven me, and I pray you will too.

But I would tell my brother I wanted to talk through the swingset with him. You know, listen to the echo of our voices through the hollow top of the swingset? Now that in itself isn't that bad. How nice of a big sister to come up with an activity like this to share with her kid brother.

But, and here's where it gets bad, I knew something Keith didn't know. I knew that there was a wasps nest on one side of the swingset.

And I would have Keith go to that side of the swingset.

Gosh, this makes me sick to even write about this. I would help hoist my brother up onto the little seat of the "A" in the swingset, and we would begin talking to each other. Within 30 seconds, my brother was stung underneath the eye.

But it gets worse. I didn't do this just one time. I did this many times. I am not exactly sure of the number, but I talked Keith into climbing up there over and over again. And he got stung under his eye over and over again.

(Now at this point in the story JB launches into a debate about what my brother could have been possibly thinking to have fallen for this over and over again. But that's beside the point. How cruel could one big sister be?)

Now ever since I was 4 and lived behind the convenience store in Illinois, I have felt guilty about this. However, my guilt grew even deeper a few years back.

I was sitting around having a heart-to-heart with my dad when he busted out with this story about one of the times that he felt most inadequate as a father. I listened with baited breath as he prepared to tell his story only to hear him say something about an old swingset and wasps. "I didn't realize the wasp nest was in the swingset," he said. "And Keith got stung 4 or 5 times before I figured it out."

Suddenly I felt like sinking into the floor. I felt, literally, sick to my stomach. Not only had I been cruel to my brother, but I had let my father harbor the guilt. How much worse could it get? I took a deep breath and launched into the whole story from the beginning, admitting all of my hidden cruelties -- cruelties that even my brother didn't know as he was only 2 and too young to remember. Cruelties I had only shared with my husband many years after he had agreed to be my husband forever.

My father, was literally, mad at me. "How could you have done that?" he asked. I was nearly in tears when I said, "Dad I was four." He launched into: "Yeah, but that was so mean. And I've lived the last 24 years thinking I was the one who caused him to get stung so many times."

Just kill me now!

However, my cruelty didn't stop there. Oh my, I hate to even write some of these things I did to my poor little borther in fear of what people will think of me. But, (gulp), I actually talked my brother into sticking my mother's car keys into a light socket. And this was also many times.

(Again, JB wonders how many times before Keith equates key + light = pain or swingset + wasp = pain).

But again, my cruelty is the major issue here. I also threw a chair at his new radio. (Keith tells this story to this day. He was about 10 when this happened so he vividly remembers it.) There was also the time that I talked him into a race. This race included no hands (they were tied together) and no feet (they were tied together.) Only after I tied Keith's hands together and then his feet, did we both realize that there was no one left to tie mine together. When I decided to leave him there in the family room, by himself, he tried to chase me and instead broke his toe on a door.

This is terribly painful to remember and even more painful to write. What kind of person did my mother give birth to? How horrid! Keith, how horrible I was. I am soooo sorry. Please forgive me. You know I love you, but man, I sucked as a "little-big-sister."