Monday, April 29, 2024
My older sister has a birthday this month, and this past weekend while I was sitting out on the deck enjoying some sun, I reflected on our lives as children. God blessed me with a wonderful mother, and she instilled a lot of very positive attributes in my sister Cynthia. With me being five years younger, her name was nearly impossible to pronounce. About the best I could do was to call her “Tia,” and so a nickname was born.
It's hard to express how good Tia was to me. While a lot of sisters, especially one five years older, would have wanted to distance themselves from a little annoying “goober boy,” she made sure I was always included. When I was on the playground, she made sure to have me be a part of whatever she was doing. When it came time for me to start my formal education, she would walk with me to and from school. She gave me my first nickname, “Bo,” which was short for Sambo, a popular children’s story at the time. She was a safety net and perhaps could even be described as a “second” mother.
As a kindergarten enrollee, I felt 10-feet-tall sitting on the bench with the fifth-grade boys when they were playing softball. Of course, I could not participate in their game because I was just too little, but Tia made it clear to the “big guys” that it was cool for me to be there. My chest would swell with pride with being included. I would pick up the bats and hand the “guys” their gloves when it was time to take the field. It wasn’t until the upper grades of elementary school that I realized my sister’s good looks had a definite effect on her male classmates and why they were more than willing to accommodate her requests to allow a little pest to be in their midst. Admittedly, it made me feel very special when all the other kids in my grade expressed their jealousy for my being accepted by the older kids. It all happened because of Tia.
I’m not sure how old I was — 4 or 5, I would think — when Tia was the one who taught me how to tie my shoes. Everyone probably remembers the angst of being young and having your shoe come untied, and not being able to fix the problem by yourself.
Tia sat me down with my pair of black Keds and carefully explained to me the process - How to loop the shoelaces, pull everything tight and then loop and tighten again. She was patient and understanding, and when I would screw up, she never made me feel incompetent, but rather would simply start me over again until I finally got it right. I’m not sure how long it took, but I have a vague memory of seeing Tia’s excitement when I finally got it right. She was as excited as I was.
In the forthcoming weeks, I would tie my shoes without help, and, of course, after that it became second nature. Tia never helped me with my shoes again. She didn’t need to. She had helped me grow and she knew I now needed to take responsibility for myself. That’s another lesson I learned that day and many times over as I grew up. It seems like nowadays there are a lot of folks who never learned that lesson and applied it to other lessons in life. Perhaps they were not fortunate enough to have a “Tia.” Thank God, I was.
Thought for the day: To the outside world, we all grow old, but not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were.
Until next time. I will keep ridin’ the storm out!
sam@hcnews.com
