As is the curse of motherhood, my mom had this terrible habit of calling my sister and I by the wrong name. My sister suffered the brunt of this, as my mom was very used to yelling at me. So naturally, she would start with the most likely suspect: "Shhhh-(and then she'd catch her mistake)-Amy!" Very rarely was her instinct to call out Amy's name first. Rarely did we hear, "A-Shana." So we started becoming a single entity: Shamy. Here is the history of Shamy.
It all began one Easter in 1977. Mom had a scheduled C-section later that week, but Amy didn't want to wait. So she became the best Easter present I ever got, though I didn't really think of it that way for years.
This is my first glimpse of what became my favorite punching bag. Those are my little pigtails in the foreground and Amy in the bassinet.
I was intrigued by this little being. What makes her tick? ...and more importantly, what makes her cry?
Very soon, I started realizing this little creature was honing in on my territory. Oh, sure. We look quite picture perfect in our Christmas finery, but don't be fooled. There was trouble brewing beneath it all. Can you see it in our faces? I was ready to leap into action at any moment, and Amy's wary face shows how alert she was for my attacks.
Sure, there WERE moments of kindness. See? There's actually photographic evidence that I shared every once in a while.
Most of the time, though, I was just bossing her around and trying to find ways of tricking her into doing something stupid or dangerous. See that malevolent sneer on my face and Amy's guileless look of innocence? That was pretty typical. I probably just told her the Easter eggs we were looking for in this picture would hatch and turn into flesh eating dinosaurs.
But you had to admit, she was SOOOOO cute! What big sister wouldn't be jealous of those piercing blue eyes and white blonde hair? And she was just so sweet, dang it! How could I compete?
It had to be through brute force. I must beat her into submission. This was at our Grandma and Grandpa Reed's house, probably just before I shoved her down this seemingly fun hill of dirt.
There's that plotting scowl again, and Amy's justifiably paranoid observation of me.
But we did have fun together. There was always somebody to dress up with, as seen here from the lens of our family friend, Patty Benker. We would play at Castle Rock at our cabin in Strawberry and come up with all sorts of crazy make believe scenarios. They usually involved me being a princess and Amy as some sort of servant girl. I think in this picture I'm a lovely southern belle and Amy is my slave. See? I even made her cast her glance downward when in my presence.
Rarely did we vacation anywhere other than Strawberry, but here is our trip to Disneyland while Dad attended the CDA convention in Anaheim, circa 1982.
We were forced to dress alike a lot. So poor Amy had to wear the same outfit for years on end: once in the little sister size and then again when she got my hand-me-downs. Between the beatings, I started taking pity on her.
Then there was this lapse of time, where there were very few pictures of the two of us together. That was about the time our parents were going through divorce. And soon after they both remarried, Amy moved in with my Dad while I stayed with my Mom.
And then this really weird thing started happening: We began to like each other. It was no longer my primary goal to find things about my little sister to hate. She was actually kind of cool. Not as cool as
me with my supercool white shades as we snorkled in Puerto Vallerta, but she was working her way up the coolness ladder in my book by the time this picture was taken.
And when we would get together, we would
crack up! It became my new goal in life to make her laugh. We would stay up late having gigglefests when we got together. Here we are in Florida, making fun of Hippies. This is the closest I ever came to getting stoned... toking on plain pieces of paper with the tips colored black, and my Mom taking this damning photographic evidence of our debauchery.
Thankfully, I stopped torturing her long enough to find in Amy one of my best friends. She is someone I no longer look upon with jealousy but with admiration. She is a tenacious, courageous, loving, compassionate, multi-talented, wise, and amazing woman. I love you dearly, Amy.
Happy Birthday!
