Sisters

When I was 10 years old my family got the surprise of a lifetime. We were having a baby.

From the moment Taylor was born I dragged her everywhere I went. She was my baby. I named her after all (the Hanson boy) and she was my best doll. I taught her how to crawl by dropping lines of Goldfish along hotel carpet (gross). I finally potty-trained her by rewarding her with Hersey kisses and Sweet Tarts and Popsicles (you can still convince her to do a lot of things for food).  I rocked her to sleep and smelled the top of her head and danced to Wiggles songs like an idiot and protected her Pink Baby. I loved her so much. I scooped her poop out of the bath tub.

As she got older I found out having a little sister was awesome (and annoying). Because she thought every little thing her older sister did was the coolest thing in the whole world. She watched my every move and followed me everywhere. She howled outside my locked bedroom door. She stole my Bath & Body Works fizzes and my Mary-Kate & Ahsley VHS tapes and my butterfly clips and my Jelly Roll pens and my friends. She held her fork with a fist and crossed her legs and talked back with attitude, like I did. I had a mini-me. I didn't realize how special and influential that relationship was until I was older.

Taylor started high school this year and a LOT of things have become really exciting for a big sister. She's going to my high school. She'll join the same clubs and attend the same retreats and learn the same values her sister did. She'll have teachers that remember me. She'll write papers that I wrote. I get to watch her buy homecoming dresses and eat Bosco sticks and get JUG for not wearing socks and trip on her way up the down staircase. She'll oogle over boys at football games and gossip about her first crush and have her first kiss in the stairway up to the 4th floor gym. AH! She's all grown up. And she is a world-class lady. 

A stolen skirt from MY closet.

In two years Taylor is going to do something with me that will change her entire life. She's going to get on that plane. Am I ready for her to do this? Do I want to change her world? Is she old enough?  

YES. 

I can pinpoint the exact moment in my life when I became "grown." When I became an adult. When the weight of the world was placed on my shoulders. I was 17 years old and I was driving in the back seat of a van around the curvy hillside of Kishanje. I was wearing an Ignatius sweatshirt and listening to a 1st generation iPod. 

This is the exact moment that everything I ever knew--about the world and what's important in life and what my responsibilities as a human being are-- changed. This boy ran alongside our van for almost an hour in the hope that our van would stop. He locked eyes with me the entire time. And then he couldn't run any longer. He turned around defeated and started the journey back home.

Soon a moment like this will happen for Taylor. I will be there with her but the journey that happens in her heart will be her own.

You can study other countries. You can talk about issues in the world. You can stare at photographs and watch documentaries. You can raise money and sponsor a child abroad. You can develop opinions on politics and religion and foreign aid. You can (and should) let your voice be heard.

But. You will never understand, never feel that weight--that weight that will flip your entire world upside down--until you go there and you see it. and you live it. and you love it. and you wrap your arms around it.

I know that my sister is going to embrace Uganda. Her arms might even spread wider than my own.