My First Friend

When I arrived…the second child in our family, I came home to not only my parents, but to my first friend…my sister, Cheryl Masterson. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there. I know that sound silly, but when you are the younger sister, that older sister is pretty special. For a little kid, just starting out, it’s great to have an older sister and friend there to show you the ropes. She had hard job of navigating the rules of the household, and now she could tell me how things are supposed to go, and what you really don’t want to try, because it will get you in trouble. Of course, as a baby and even into my first year, I didn’t get into much trouble, but I’m pretty sure I made up for it later on.

Of course, it wasn’t just having Cheryl show me how things were in our house that made that homecoming, and the subsequent years so special, but rather, the wonderful friendship we had as kids, and still have to this day. I know that my sister would give her right arm for me, because she is such a loving and giving person. I can always count on her to be there for me, and help me with anything she can, and I’m sure she knows that I feel the same way about her too. I have been blessed with four wonderful sisters, all of whom I love dearly, but Cheryl was the first one, and the leader of our little group of sisters. She as also the cool one, in my opinion. She always seemed to have it all together, and somehow I just didn’t. Maybe it was just the teenaged awkwardness, but my sister never seemed to go through it, so I looked up to her in her coolness.

I love that she and I shared those early childhood years. We were able to explore the wonder of the world around us together, and see all the sights our backyard had to offer. And then, because our parents liked to go sight seeing, we got to explore the sights of our home in Superior, Wisconsin. That was something our younger sisters never really got to do in the same way, because all were born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Cheryl and I got to see a little bit of how our lives might have been different had we stayed in Wisconsin, when we visited our family there in August of 2014, and while our lives are here in Casper now, we both loved the area around Lake Superior. I guess it still felt like home to us, because it was where our roots are.

I think I am a very blessed sister to have the sisters I have, and that I was very blessed indeed, to have my sister Cheryl to come home to when I was born. You can’t pick your family…it’s true, but I know that if I could have, I wouldn’t have changed a single thing, because mine is the greatest family in the world. I know that may not be what other people think, but that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.