She/I

She watched the poorly animated cow and the purple lights flash across the screen, the Cow Song played, and she silently cried to herself as she listened to the music.

She felt the brittle bark of the branches of the tree and picked the crisp green apple off the highest branch when she was five.

I put stuffed animals on the blades of the ceiling fan, then turn on the fan and dive into my bed and watch all of the stuffed toys fly off. My sister would yell “take cover!”, and she and I would laugh as Bunny, her stuffed bunny, leapt off the fan and hit the closet door.

She got a double ear infection when she was two, and didn’t cry about it once.

I felt every minute of the night tick by. I was staring at the ceiling because I didn’t say my prayer. I feared that God would strike me down as I slept because I did not pray for Him to keep me safe.

Her baby brother was born, and she held his tiny, premature frame in the hospital bed with her mother and sister.

I threw up on a road trip with my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. We had to stop at a gas station so my aunt could change me into my pajamas - which just happened to be a yellow nightgown with Spongebob Squarepants on it. I remember being embarrassed.

She walked up to her sister, who was sitting in the chair playing the computer, and she bit her hard on her haunches of her lower back.

I went to an easter egg hunt at the park with my family. Someone had a video camera, and my dad made a montage of the day to the song “We’re Going to Be Friends.” I remember running around the park with my sister, and getting so many eggs with her. I remember my dad showing us the video he made. I remember the song. No one else does.

She ran the kids quarter mile main street race. Her dad had to run with her because she sobbed the whole time.

I woke up on the floor early one morning of vacation before anyone else. I was in a three story house with my 27 family members. I sat up and looked at the bed I had fallen off of to see my cousin sprawled out on my side. I figured she had pushed me to the floor. I decided to go out to the couch in the hallway and sleep there. As I walked to the couch, and was about to lay down, I looked out to the balcony and saw that the sun was starting to rise. I sat on the balcony alone and watched the sun’s rays begin to stretch over the sleepy beach.

She was in Canada, and someone offered her ‘Smarties’ - they weren’t actually Smarties - and she said, “These aren’t ‘marties, you twickin us!”

I would lay on my back at night, and look at the bottom of my sister’s bed. I would put my feet up on the wooden bars that held her aloft and push up, yelling “earthquake” as I shook her bed.

She went to a Train concert with her family one summer, and her cousin won a bag of small rubber duckies at one of the booths. They decided it would be a fun idea in the big field of the concert to throw them at each other, playing a game like tag.

At a resort in Canada, I was in the hot tub with my mom, aunt, siblings, and my cousin. The hot tub was a level below the pool, which was adorned with windows facing the hot tub. The girls and my baby brother sat around the tub with our feet in, watching our cousins and uncle who were in the pool swim down to the window and make silly faces. As everyone was distracted by our family in the pool, I slipped off the edge and fell in the hot tub. I was too young to know how to swim. I was underwater for an hour. My mom grabbed my arm and pulled me up after a second.

She had to interview her grandfather about his grandfather, an Irish immigrant named Archibald, for a presentation she had to do on family.

While at the Train concert, a song played that I had heard on the radio. I couldn’t remember the words, but I danced to the tune with my sister and cousin. My little brother was sitting on our picnic blanket, and suddenly, singing along to the song, he shouted “No, hell, no!” We all started laughing because clearly he didn’t know what the word meant, and my mom explained that only grown ups can say that word.

I told my mom I always cry to opera music, but I never knew why. She pulled up a video on YouTube and pressed play. Applause and an opening curtain. Upon a hill, an animated cow stood singing “O mio babbino caro” to her love in the stars. I started crying.