…and how did SHE get here???

So when I was 15 and my family moved to Guatemala, I met someone who would become a very important part of my life. She was two and a half at the time. She wore her hair in these adorable pig tail type braids that met on top of her head and connected together. She wore these jelly shoes that you could hear as she ran through the room. She spoke only a few words and they were in Ixil, a Mayan Indian dialect. Thankfully, she understood our broken Spanish. And when we met, she spoke one glorious word in English- it was my name! She would run through the hallways of the malnutrition center where she lived just yelling my name, Julie, at the top of her lungs! It was my favorite sound. It wasn’t long after we met that I wanted to bring her home with me. She crawled up in my dad’s lap and proclaimed that he was her poppy and the rest was history! She was my new baby sister. She was my world. I showed her off to everyone I met. She was beautiful with these big dark eyes that would melt my heart. She came into our lives and changed it for the better in so many ways. That was many years ago and this precious little one will celebrate her 29th birthday tomorrow. My baby sister is all grown up. She will always be my baby sister though. She makes fun of my middle aged blunders. She teases about my old person music preferences. She laughs at me and pokes fun! She is my sister. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she also became my friend. I love her sense of humor and her laughter. I love her smile and her dimple in the end of her nose. And although I don’t tell her often enough, she is one of my absolute favorite people on this planet and I love her with my whole heart! Happy Birthday, Stusta!!!