She's Fallen and She Can't Get Up!

Whenever I think of my childhood or of any family memory, I think of my two older sisters. We, all three of us, were (and are) very close despite an eight year age difference. With this, I've always considered my oldest sister a "mother" figure, someone whose maternal instincts were evident even as a young girl. There are so many pictures of her holding and taking care of a newborn me. I'm also told that she has been looking after me as her own since day one, and I have more than a few memories of my sister getting after me to do the right thing, or to stay out of trouble, or nagging me to wear my lipstick (which she thinks brightens my face and "pulls me together.")

I'm grateful to my sister for taking such good care of me all these years (she still "mothers" me even now.) But, despite her fine-tuned maternal instinct, it's a bit of a surprise that she is NOT good in emergency situations. Although she has cared for her testosterone-filled family of athletes for fifteen years (and her sisters for even longer,) including the occasional sports injury or accident, this highly-educated, CPR-trained, former-lifeguard, 4th grade teacher (is there a tougher job? no!) woman, cannot handle an emergency. Unfortunately, she gets so panicked that she freezes and all common sense leaves the situation.

Years ago, I offered to accompany my sister on a 2 1/2 hour drive to deliver my nephew to my other sister so that he could stay with her for a few days. After making our delivery, we started back for home. However, shortly into our journey it started snowing. Then, it started snowing A LOT. I could see that my sister was too panicked to drive in the nasty weather, so I offered to take over and drive her SUV instead. Then, not two miles down the road, my frantic passenger let the stress of the snowstorm get the better of her and she insisted that I pull over. Although I felt fairly confident driving in the storm, I pulled over and let my sister calm her nerves. What I didn't expect was that my caretaking big sister, who was too petrified to drive or even let ME drive, would now be reclined back in the passenger seat, mouth hanging open, snoring five minutes after she insisted that we stop and leaving me to deal with our predicament on my own. So, I went ahead and made the executive decision that we find a hotel for the night since we weren't going anywhere and my sister was obviously exhausted from her trying experience. The next morning, we finally started for the drive home, that was, only after scraping ice from the windows using the butter dish and block of wood she kept in the car for such occasions. No, really.

Another time when my sister demonstrated her heroics during an emergency situation, was when the neighbor's house caught on fire. Reacting quickly in her attempt to help, my sister ran back to her own house, just a hundred or so feet away, to get a fire extinguisher. However, in her panic, she had a horrible time making her way back to the fire. With the bottom half of her body suddenly paralyzed in distress, my sister's legs gave out, she collapsed on the muddy lawn, not once but four times! Every time she attempted in a frenzy to get back on her feet, her legs buckled and she fell down again. And with each "fall," she got more anxious and more covered in mud. Meanwhile, the "helpful" other neighbors, having witnessed the whole, unfortunate scene, casually went about their barbecue, never once offering to assist or at the very least drag my sister out of the mud pit in which she was now swimming. As you can probably guess, by the time my sister finally did arrive with the extinguisher, the fire was already long out. Lucky for them, the neighbors quickly forgot about their frightening emergency after watching the entire scene of my poor sister dragging her way (as if she were on a "boot camp" obstacle course) across their yard from the kitchen window.

Despite her successful or not so successful attempts to help in an emergency, her intentions are good. And really, that's what matters at the end of the day. I just hope that she has 911 on speed dial. And really, "Life Alert" isn't just for Grandma.

Remember when?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQlpDiXPZHQ