Fifty years ago, on this night, I hovered around Mother’s bedroom as she prepared her suitcase. Grandma Donna was there, assisting Mother. I asked Mother why she was packing her suitcase.

“I just want to be ready. The baby will be here, any day, now.”

I was nearing the anniversary of my half-year birthday, and at age eight, I was finally going to be a big brother. I was the only student in my second-grade class at Washington Elementary School who did not have a sibling. For a while, it was Roger Smith and me who were single children.

I nibbed around Mother’s room and on top of the cedar chest by one of the two windows that looked down the large hill to Main Street, there was a sack. I opened the sack and was instantly excited. There were two cardboard portraits of Presidents Washington and Lincoln.

“Well, I was going to give those to you for Valentine’s Day,” laughed Mother.

We went to my bedroom and tacked the two portraits on the bulletin board.

I went to bed that evening and when it was time to ready for school, it was not Mother but Grandma Donna who came in to wake me.

Grandma Donna sat on my bed and announced, “Your mommy had a baby girl this morning.”

I was elated as I hurried to school to make the announcement to my class. For a second grader, it was a surreal day. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Cassidy had the class take time out to write congratulatory notes to my family and to welcome my new sister, Dena Linn Jolliff.

That night, we drove to Muncie’s Ball Memorial Hospital, but I had to remain in the large waiting room as children were not allowed to visit the rooms. Mother wrote a note to me that Grandma Donna delivered, and a second note to Mrs. Cassidy and my classmates, thanking them for all the wonderful greetings.

Saturday morning, we returned from Muncie, but this time, with my new sister in a car carrier seat recently vacated by our neighbor girl, Nikki Wolfe. Before going into the house at 825 Main Street, we walked across Ninth Street to introduce Dena to our neighbors, Luther and Ida Myrick.

Read about The Myricks: Luther & Ida Myrick

In fifteen minutes, my younger sister and I will share a decade for a mere nineteen months at which point I will turn sixty.

I raise a glass of Metamucil, lift my age-spotted cheeks in a smile, and tap dance in orthopedic shoes to celebrate the woman who, fifty years ago, made me a big brother, and eventually, an uncle.

Happy 50^th birthday, Sis! Know you are loved…