Tiny & Mighty

Growing up my sister and I were the only two children in our eight person family. My parents always made sure we understood the importance of closeness between sisters so we weren’t really allowed to fight much. This resulted in us both being overly protective of one another at a very early age….

I was eight years old when I found out exactly how protective my little sister was. My friend Sara and I were jumping up and down on my bed goofing around. Robin was in the room watching us play at the age of four. She was pretty ill as a child – always in and out of the hospital for various ailments so we treated her like she was frail. I never really had a problem with her hanging around me because that’s what little sisters like to do. So she was always by my side and I tried to include her in as many of our games as possible and wouldn’t allow my friends to bully her into going away. She was also an incredibly intelligent child which we would come to realize shortly.

Anyway, I am not really sure why but Sara suddenly shoved me off of the bed at full force. I landed on the floor face down, not really moving because I was shocked at the violent outburst. Apparently, this didn’t sit well with Robin because immediately upon seeing this take place she grabbed a yellow plastic bat we had and ran up to Sara to give her a full whack across the back of the head and yelled “Don’t you ever hurt my sister again!” Sara, taken by surprise burst into tears and ran home.

Robin watched Sara flee the room and then dropped the bat on the floor. She crouched down beside me and said “I scared her away for you Iggy. Are you okay?” (She couldn’t quite say my name right yet). She brushed my hair off of my face and I looked at her with my crooked 2nd grade smile. I always thought it was funny that a child that we treated like glass could be so fierce. Our parents later told Robin that hitting people with bats was not acceptable behavior even if her heart was in the right place. Secretly though, I think they were proud that their daughters had taken the sister bond so seriously.

After that day, Sara started bugging her parents for a little sister.