She was my first hero. And she is my biggest fan.  How many people can say that about any one person?

My sister, Peggy, could do anything in my eyes while we were growing up.  That is why she and I fought, pretty much constantly, until we were almost adults.  Who likes anyone that can do everything, right?  She could run faster, climb higher, and she KILLED me in Chess, anytime I was silly (or bored) enough to give her a game.  And don’t even THINK about arm-wrestling her.  I saw her beat boys, often.  Now, when you are a couple of tomboy sisters who spent most of their youth living on a small farm, these are the most important things in life, in no particular order:  running, tree-climbing, arm-wrestling, and when our favorite uncle visited the farm, Chess skills were most enviable. If you could hold your own against Uncle Clare in a chess game, you had “farm cred”.  I never had “farm cred”.

So I was jealous.  And with good reason, obviously.  But my admiration for her was immense.

Then we moved off the farm and into a housing development closer to town.  Where Peggy displayed another skill I was heretofore unaware of:  Peggy could date boys.  NO FAIR! I wasn’t even aware of boys, except for their obviously superior arm-wrestling skills!  I had clearly NOT been paying attention.  It didn’t matter.  She had me beat on this front, too.

Peggy talked me into jumping off a roof, twice.  Once into a blanket being held by her and a few of the neighbor kids, and once with my dad’s prize golf umbrella.  She talked me into putting my hands behind my back and diving head first into a lake, resulting in a broken front tooth.  I jumped off of and into more things than you can imagine, because Peg thought I should.  She always says if she was one hundred percent sure something would work, she would try it; anything less than one hundred percent?  Get Pam.

Peggy finished high school with the odds very much against her, and finished nursing school under circumstances at least as difficult.  My admiration for her grew to a point that I couldn’t have fathomed before.  And somehow, SHE admired ME.

I went off to the Coast Guard, and have lived in various parts of the country since I left home, but my relationship with Peg has never faltered.  We don’t arm wrestle anymore, or climb trees.  But we both run.  Now we run together.  We have run three half-marathons together, but we don’t race each other.  She encourages me more than any person could.  She is always the first to suggest I have the skill or talent for some new endeavor, and is always there to cheer for me, if and when I eventually try it.  I guess she knows from the roof jumps and lake dive that I am not as afraid as I think I am.

Peg called me last Thursday.  “Guess what, Pam?”

“What”

“I found out today that I have breast cancer.”

Simple.  Like that.  She said it wasn’t life-threatening.  She said she would have to have radiation.  She said a whole bunch of things.  So did I.  I remember very, very little of it.  I just knew that my first hero and biggest fan had breast cancer.

And I sat in my car and I cried.