I rarely write about my Little Sister because I don’t want to embarrass her or tell tales she’d rather I didn’t. But she remains an important part of my life, even though the formal part of our relationship is essentially over.
She’s 19 now, a young woman. We’ve been Big and Little for more than half her life now and we have just come through a rather rough year. In a nutshell, she almost lost her full post-secondary scholarship and it was weighing heavily on my heart. She won this scholarship through the Big Brother program, administered by CIBC, and the thought of it vanishing was truly a tragedy for her future. But it didn’t turn out that way and she starts the Child and Youth Worker course after these holidays.
She is exceptionally bright, frighteningly pretty and undoubtedly deserving of a helping hand. She hasn’t had the greatest year but it looks like 2009 will be a much better one. We started as Big and Little Sister but now we’re more like friends. I’ll always be the older (and hopefully I can continue to make her believe, wiser!) pal but she has taught me a lot as well. Her cleverness surprises and delights me. And her future is looking very bright, indeed.