Happy Birthday, Kami!

I have three younger sisters. The next youngest from me is named Kami. We’re three years apart. Have you ever heard of siblings getting along throughout their childhood? Me neither. We tolerated each other. Just barely.

Recently, I was researching something on religion and somehow stumbled upon the definition of her name as defined by an 18^th century Japanese scholar, Motoori Norinaga:

"A kami is any thing or phenomenon that produces the emotions of fear and awe, with no distinction between good and evil.”

Wow. My parents must have consulted some kind of prophet when they picked her name. It is spot on! There is no way that happened randomly. Fate. Karma. Whatever. She was the epitome of that definition when we were kids.
I was older. Granted, I was calmer than she was. More on the meek side. But I was older. That alone should have warranted some degree of respect.  Wrong. Once she began to walk and talk, it was over. If we were a pack of puppies, she would have been alpha dog.
My parents have a recording of Kami and I singing, we were probably 4 and 7, and every few moments Kami would yell at me. “Susie! You’re not singing it right!” “Hey, this is MY part!” “That’s NOT how it goes!”

“It is too!” “Sing your own song, Kami!”

We fought all the time.

Lee became part of our pack when Kami was four, which simply added to her list of subordinates. Once Lee was a little older, Kami would make us play “school”. She was ALWAYS the teacher. “No talking! Pay attention! Eyes front!” she’d holler, slapping one of our desks with a ruler. I thanked God that I never had a teacher like her in school!

When Katie was born Lee was about three and a half. One more cadet for her troop. Katie actually turned into Kami’s living doll. She’d dress her and do her hair and everything. Apparently, the larger the age difference, the less animosity.

Every once in a while I would babysit when my parents wanted to get out for coffee for an hour or so. One time Kami and I were going at it back and forth and I ran out of the house anticipating her to follow. She closed and locked the door. Nice. I went all around the house checking all the windows, looking for a way in. When I got back to the front door, she was on the other side of the small paned windows adjacent to the door, sticking her tongue out at me. I was so mad I punched at her face through the little window. Guess who got in trouble for that one?

Those of you with children who seemingly live for sibling rivalry understand that there’s nothing you can do to keep it at bay. The best you can do is sentence punishment equal to the crime and hope it’s severe enough that they think twice before offending again. To this day I love my mom’s strategy for dealing with us the best. We each sat on one end of the couch and neither could get up until the other let her. Genius, mom.

My sister Kami is still the epitome of the definition of her name. As a child, it was manifested as, well, something akin to Satan. Now, she’s older and wiser, and the sweetest, coolest, do-everything, help-everyone type of woman. Definitely AWESOME!

Happy Birthday Kami!