That Very Last November Day

  Twenty five moons ago on a very cold dark night my mom was in labor at home. My three younger siblings were asleep and I thought I was being very helpful giving my mom advice about what she should do during said labor. My mom had given birth four times successfully. I was ten years of age. She was sure she was going through false labor and she was not happy about it. My incredibly 'helpful' advice was making her angry. My mom never got upset at me ~ very rarely anyway. So when she snapped at me and told me to go to bed I was QUITE offended. Since I thought my mom WAS in labor you'd think I would never be able to fall asleep for excitement...however since I was ten that was not the case at all and off to sleep I went immediately leaving my mom to her fate. See, my dad was out and out till late and this was not the days of cell phones or texting. We lived on a farm on a road with no streetlights and it was a cold dark night as I'd said before. She was home alone with four kids in bed and another one about to be born!

  As the evening wore on my mom decided to try the bath tub trick. If you are in false labor and you have a bath or shower you usually stop contracting. When she tried this and contractions were as strong as ever she realized that she was indeed in real labor. She tracked down my dad who came home in a frantic rush and minutes later my mom gave birth to my sister (her last baby at age forty) standing in our farm kitchen.

  My dad never being the most calm person I am sure was a bit fit to be tied. He called an ambulance and our neighbor and she ran through the dark to our house. The ambulance screamed past with sirens blaring and my dad had to run out and try to flag them down. Our sweet neighbor came upstairs and woke me. I stumbled downstairs bleary and full of self righteousness. I HAD been RIGHT! I got down just in time to see my mom on a stretcher with a tiny black headed baby snuggled in beside her. The ambulance attendance were glowing and happy and were trying to get everyone ready for the cold transfer. My dad was excited, my mom pale but calm as always, and my new baby sister was taking it all in.

  After they went to the hospital I went back up to bed as there seemed to be nothing else to do. I tried to wake up my next sister to tell her but she had no interest in waking up for any news in the world and after probably two minutes of lying in bed wondering what this new addition in my life would mean...I fell blissfully back to sleep. The story made it in the news paper and after the news died down we all settled into life with a sweet new baby during a cold winter.

Fast forward twenty five years and it is my sister's birthday today.

  She has lived with me for a lot of her life now and is an integral part of my immediate family. My children feel like she is a mix of aunty and older sister and love her dearly.

  When you are privileged to get to know the real her you see her joy and enthusiasm for life and new experiences; you see her excitement about the things she loves, and you see how full of expression and life she is. It makes sense that she entered the world the way she did. It was a dramatic happening at the time. The ambulance attendance had never been to a birth before and they had both been in their fields of work for years.

She is a gem.

I am glad she came and I am thankful she is all that she is.

Happy Birthday sis

Love Tansy