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Every family has their representative Baby.  This lovely creature is ours.

As elder sisters, we’ve never resented her for her Baby qualities; we know better than anyone that she fully deserves preferential treatment through life and from young ages, did our part to perpetuate this truth.  I remember that when she was  a chubby, pink-cheeked, perpetually smiling baby, one of her very favorite baby activities was reaching high to a built-in planter there was in our living room.  You see, she had figured out early on that there were thousands – nay billions – of little white rocks in there, presumably meant to provide a fashionable backdrop to any plants my mother intended to someday place in it.  In the meantime, though – o the glorious meantime – my baby sister would arch her little back with the strain of reaching for these precious rocks and pull handful after handful of them to fling delightedly over our living room carpet, splaying them delightedly as far as her little baby hands could scatter them.  I also remember that it was my other sister and I to whom the task of picking up those billion white rocks fell.   We did it and we griped and were mad, but we also never questioned that it was right that the task not fall to our Baby.  Our Baby was ours and she was far too sweet for something so mundane as that.

She is the sort of person who you want to throw rose petals  in front of, to soften her deservedly aromatic path, she’s so nice.  Her husband, a wise and sensible man, knows this too.  From my vantage point, it looks to bring him joy the concept of beautifying and easifying her life for her.  You’d do it too, if you knew her.

She’s generous, easy-going, fun-loving and always, always, always up for a good time.  Whenever there is laughing, there she is drawn.  She has – my whole sentient life – reminded me of Mary, sister to Martha, both of whom were friends of Jesus.  Mary didn’t bog herself down with the stress of ensuring that everything was perfect for the sake of perfection.  Instead, she prioritized relationship and spent whatever time she had at Jesus’ feet, listening to him and loving him.  Martha, on the stark other hand, has always reminded me somewhat painfully of me.  She stormed around the kitchen (I imagine) working her tail feathers off, angrily wondering why no one bothered to help her.  She then griped aloud to Christ about her self-imposed work load (it’s nearly always self-imposed, I find) and he responded in Luke 10:41-42 in His ever-perfect wisdom,“Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”  Mary is my sister’s Biblical counterpart.  She has a wisdom about her that informs her of what is the most important and I would be so much wiser to copy her way of doing relationships through life.

My sister uses true artistry to beautify herself.  I’m not just saying that to elevate things like hair and makeup to a higher realm; she really does.  She has artistic instincts in these things.  When she does my makeup, I look prettier than I know how to make me.  She understands shading and angles and the geometry and physics of beauty.  Like another friend I have, my sister uses her body and the clothes she drapes it with as an art form, as a means of expressing the creativity inside of her, aching for outward expression.  I have never seen her look not stunning, even disguised as a male and moustachioed butler!

I adore this girl and wish for you to meet her someday.  You’ll probably hate her a little at first for all the outward beauty, but then as you chat, you’ll soon find that hate turn to an enthusiastic love as you see the insides of this woman competing with her outsides, to see which can be the more beautiful.

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