September 6, 2012 by Erin

Character

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Flat on my back, I looked up and saw four fingers. The room was still swirling and a few stars still floated in front of my eyes. It was around midnight, and a trip to the bathroom had gone very wrong when I stepped on an ill-placed guitar (I won’t tell you who put it in the middle of the floor), wobbled around like a bad tight-rope walker for a second, fell head first into the door-frame, and bounced backward onto the floor. The bang was so loud that my comatose sister actually woke up. I counted her fingers again. “Four,” I said.

“Erin … there’s only two.”

“What?!”

“Ok, try again. How many?”

“Four.” I was sure this time.

“Erin, it’s two,” she said with a nervous smile. I started to panic. I mean, I had literally seen stars. My head was throbbing. I wasn’t sure I could move. And apparently I was seeing double. Didn’t that mean something was really wrong? Head injuries are sort of serious, right? And yet, a little voice (we’ll call it “Rational Erin”) kept reminding me who it was leaning over me. But surely, surely she wouldn’t make a joke at a time like this. Or would she?

“Don’t mess with me, Bek!”

“No, I’m serious. There were only two.”

“Bekah, really, don’t mess with me right now. I hit my head really hard. This isn’t funny.”

“Erin, I wouldn’t lie. I think you should go wake Mom and Dad up.”

Worried I was about to lose brain function before I went to college, I went to my parents’ bedroom. About the time my mom was checking my pupils, I heard my sister laughing outside the door.

Change scene. In my parents’ kitchen, a newly allergy-prone Bekah pulled an EpiPen out of her purse to show my brothers and me like it was a new iPhone. “Look,” she said, “there’s a little needle in this end, and you jab it into your leg … really hard.” As she spoke, I felt that familiar tingling in my arms. Needle … jab … think I’m gonna be sick. Just then, I saw it coming toward me. Again, Rational Erin softly reminded me that my sister loved me and would not take advantage of my greatest fear and stab me with a needle. But what would you do if someone lunged at you with an EpiPen? The same thing I did: run. We ran circles around the house, in fact—Bekah chasing, me screaming, Andy and Daniel cry-laughing. (Keep in mind, this was just this year. All of us are in our twenties.) I don’t really know what happened next, because I think I went into some kind of horrified daze. The next thing I remember is punching Bekah in the back repeatedly, yelling something like, “No, please, please, no!” I must have hit her pretty hard, because she finally backed away. She slammed the EpiPen into her own leg, a couple times … it was a needle-less practice version.

These are just two of countless stories I could tell about my sister, Rebekah—Becky to most, Bekah to some, and to me, usually, just Bek. Now, before you start thinking she’s an annoying jerk (which, as a big sister, I’m tempted to let you do), I do have to tell you that in both of the above cases, I had it coming. I always have it coming. Ever since I was a baby, I’ve had a tendency to take myself far too seriously. Very few people can get the best of me like Bekah can, and she does it whenever she gets the chance. Trust me, we’re all better off for it.  I think God knew I needed to be chased around the house a few times.

Bek brings life when she walks in a room. Of the two of us, obviously, she’s the more outgoing and boisterous. I’m a little stiff and downright awkward sometimes, and my sister reminds me to loosen up just by being herself. (I think it’s working … slowly.) But when I say she brings life, I don’t just mean she’s the life of the party (though she is that); I mean she offers a generous and compassionate heart. She offers life, whether with our family or friends or the patients she nurses. To me, she’s been a convicting example of tenderness.

A few weeks ago we moved Bekah out of my parents’ and into a new adventure. Their house is much quieter now, and when I went home for Labor Day I was pretty bored. Not enough to miss running from a needle, but bored nonetheless. Let’s just say a road trip to visit her may be in my near future. Otherwise, I might start thinking I’m above being chased. Heaven forbid.