The Story Series: Part Four: Through It All

My story for today has to do with one young lady in particular. She's one of the most amazing people I have in my life and am so in love with how blessed I am to have her as my sister. She has all the qualities I would want in myself. She has love, care, compassion, respect, honor and the list could go on and on. She has a brilliance about her.

Karli Anne Meier shined a light upon my life on October 20th, 1998 and became my sister.

The story I'm about to post is one about a difficult time in our lives. A story of silver linings and dreaming from within a dark place. I honestly don't know if she will remember this story as she was around the age of five, but she just might!

I'll speak from my perspective about a brief introduction to my childhood:
To be blunt and honest, it wasn't the best. As I used the words dark and difficult, that's exactly what it was. My dad was emotionally, verbally and physically abusive. I was raised to defend myself by having to be head strong and always keeping a bright outlook on the future (something to look forward to). My mom had to work long hours for the family because my dad either couldn't keep a job or didn't want one. She had to bring home the bacon so-to-speak and often worked late to compensate for the 160 miles she had to drive each day to work. In this, this meant that Tim (I usually call my dad, Tim, for good reason) was home more often to care for Karli and I. Don't get me wrong, there was some artificial "good" times (after a long time and so many bad memories overcome the good), but in our case, divorce was a better out than them staying together.


A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life. ~Isadora James

It was a fall Monday night when Mom came home. Her car lights ran their course into the driveway and both Karli and I felt that blink of excitement that "Mom was home!" Tim paced back and forth in the kitchen as he prepared a marinated flank steak, silently. Karli gave me those eyes that said that he was upset and to be heads up. By this time in our childhoods, we had perfected signals to each other and ways to deescalate a tense situation.

We made the decision to walk out to Mom's car to "help her bring her things in". We walked out to her car in the crisp fall air to warn her that Tim was in a mood. As we all three walked into the house, Tim was already up for a confrontation. This time it was the fact that "we loved Mom more than him".

I told Karli to meet me up in our room upstairs. I did that as often as I could because I knew that arguing like he did was nothing normal, nor healthy. To be honest, I don't know how I got upstairs or out of the argument, but all I know is that when I got up to our bedroom, I found Karli crying. Looking back on it, us kids never really cried. I mean we had more than enough excuses in my opinion to cry, but we really didn't.

I asked her what was wrong and she said she didn't want Dad to think that we loved Mom more than him. I told her that he was just trying to start something. He would always pick something to fight about whether it was putting the toilet paper on "backwards" or putting a big item in the trash that "took up too much space". She said that she knew he did and she just wished that we could make him happy.

I attempted to change the conversation to something good. "What do you want to be when you grow up, Kar?" After what seemed to be careful thought, she replied with, "I want to be a vet or a firefighter." "Ohhhh! Those are good choices! What made you think of those!?" I asked. "Well, a vet can take care of pets. Everyone loves their pets because they are always there and happy. A vet saves animals that make people happy! And a firefighter puts out fires and saves animals and pets sometimes! They can die trying to save people and houses, but they still try!"

I was floored with how she wanted to help people. It was hard to imagine her all grown up and ready to face life. I gave her a hug and we sat there and talked and talked about where we wanted to live and go to school.

I couldn't imagine my life without my lifelong companion. There's definitely a special bond between us just like most sisters. We keep secrets for one another, seen each other at our lowest points and highest and so on.

I'm so proud of my sister. I would go above and beyond for her in anything. What ever she decides to do when she grows up, I know that she will succeed far beyond what is expected of her as she always does!

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega