This past week my sister, Leigh, celebrated her birthday. Mine is in a couple of weeks. I love that they are both in the same month. I wanted to take the occasion to write a post about what she means to me. I think she knows. I hope she knows. But either way, sharing my love for her with the internet universe just feels right this year.

Leigh and I have shared over four decades of life together. That is a lot of memories and lived experiences. Like most sibling relationships, the highlights include family road trips, epic temper tantrums, and periods of infrequent communication. We are the only two who endured our parents’ alcoholic disfunction, and that alone feels like a badge of something. Certainly not honor, but, hey, we survived in the trenches and are probably closer because of it.

So of all the sister stories I could share in these following few hundred words, the one that I want to write about was when Leigh and I drove from Tacoma to Minneapolis in July 2001 for our paternal grandmother’s funeral.