Happy birthday!!!!!!

Once upon a time, and long ago, some deity decided that the best thing for me was to have a sister named Yamy. And on 6/6/60-something, she was born. That same deity decided to wait four years for me to come along, and that's a good thing. I'm a lucky girl.

The strange thing about birthdays is that we fete the person having the birthday, rather than the people who are glad that person was born.

So here I am, celebrating my sister's birthday without her, and it's strange, because really, I want to give her presents because *I* am the lucky one that she was ever brought into this world.

Yamy is my best friend. I have other friends that I love and with whom I want to spend time, but none more than Yamy. I don't even have to be in the same time zone as my sister to laugh so hard that I can't breathe at something she has said -- or *not* said. We are not the same kind of people -- we have different personality types, and she's smart, and she's logical and mathmatical, and I am a gooberhead -- but that just doesn't matter. My sister is my favorite person in the world.

Years ago -- *years* ago -- we sang "Sisters" in a fund-raising talent show for a music club. I blew the last note. Yep, I said it, I blew the last note. I wrecked it. Yamy never said a mean word about it.

A few years before that, we performed the most incredible piece of music I've ever sung, "Go Tell It On The Mountain." We sang it in church on that Sunday right after Christmas when the regular choir wants the day off. We knocked it *way* out of the park. We switched back and forth between the soprano and alto parts. I get chills just thinking about that performance. To this day, I've never sung anything as perfectly as that song, and I'm convinced it was because I was singing with Amy.

Oh, you're wondering why I call her "Yamy." Well, it's because she spent a year in Japan, where they don't pronounce names with a beginning vowel sound. I was "Bay" by that time, and Amy needed a similar nickname. Yamy fit the bill. "Hey, Bay," she would say, and I could reply, "Hey, Yay!"

You can't pick apart the logic. After all, "Amy" isn't even her real name. Although I think she's seriously considering changing her name legally.

Seriously -- I wish I had bought a cake for *me* to celebrate Amy's birthday. I'm the luckiest person in the world to have such a sister. Without Amy, I would still say "costed" instead of "cost." Without Yamy, I wouldn't have the fabulous pork-chops-and-gravy recipe that I so gladly share with anyone who wants it. Without my sister Laura Grace "Yamy" Trotter Turner, I wouldn't be who I am today.

I am so glad she was born. I am so lucky that I was born into the same family. I don't know why Amy should be celebrating her birthday, but I know for sure why *I* am celebrating. I might be across the continent from her, but that doesn't lessen the impact she has on my life -- every single, gorgeous day in her company.

Thank you, God, for giving me my Yamy. Thank you, Yay, for being my stister. I'm sorry I was such a squeaky wheel for the first 15 years or so. You really rock! Who else would have taken me to see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"? Who else would have helped me memorize so much Monty Python when I was just 9 years old?

You are the bestest stister EVER. And I mean that. Happy birthday!!!!!!!!!!