Ode to a Sister

When I was little, my sister, Lauren, woke up because she couldn't hear me breathing in the bed next to her. She ran upstairs to get my parents who hurried me to a hospital. After that she trained herself to sleep to the sound of my breathing so she could always wake up if I was struggling.

This is the earliest example I can think of her saving my bacon, but it most certainly was not the last.

In junior high she knew I was lonely because I was painfully shy. She invited younger siblings of good friends to hang out with us, dialed phone numbers of friends and shoved the phone in my face at the last second so I couldn't chicken out, and often invited me to hang out with her and her friends.

When she moved to college she spent many hours on the phone with me and drove home nearly every weekend to just spend time with me when I needed a friend.

When I moved to Utah State, I spent more time in her apartment than in my own.

She spent more time planning my wedding than I did.

She once made my husband dinner for his birthday because we both had late classes (so did she.)

She watched my baby once a week this semester, even though she was busy with classes, her thesis, and student teaching.

There are so many other examples of how she has looked out for me. Whenever she heard of a problem in my life she did everything she could to fix it,  even at times in our lives when I didn't treat her very well. She would drop everything to help a friend.

Now, she is applying for jobs all over the country and it is breaking my heart. The only other times we've been more than  an hour drive apart is when she served two performing missions to Nauvoo, Illinois. And I, extremely selfishly, didn't like it very much. I like her close to me. This is going to be rough.

Today she graduates with her master’s. She worked so hard. She is passionate about what she does and incredibly good at it. This March she won an award at a conference in her field for the research she did for her master’s thesis. People, she ain't just a pretty face. She's a smarty pants.

But most importantly, she will always, always, be my best friend.