Sarah -- I hope this is up to par:
Dear Little Sister:
I remember when you were born, a neighborhood kid told me the information and said you were a girl. I said I knew because I wanted to be ahead of the 1960s breaking news. Even back then, at six, I was a natural reporter. There's a picture of us standing outside our old red house in Delmar, New York and you're in a bonnet but if I said the color, (it was pink) I'd be lying and you'd shout out, "Oh, you're just being so James Frey again!" As a kid when you were four and we moved to the grounds of the orphanage, you always wanted to be "Mrs. Ford." We would play house and call you just that. Was it because the president was Gerald? Was it after our car? Or the Model-T?
I was always worried about you. I worried when you went off to pre-K. I cried when you broke your leg skiing at four. I wished it had been me. I wanted the cast. When I came home from college and you were still a minor we would go get loaded on Sangria at the Ground Round. I made you drink pitchers of it and then we'd cruise around Albany looking for boys. (Well, sort of.) Popcorn was our food substance. I ruined your senior year of high school when I came home from law school after suffering a nervous breakdown, and I feel bad about that. You were having so much fun, charging people entrance fees to your parties and then I arrived with all my belongings the February of your last year in school.
You've always worried me even as an adult. You drive too fast! You have daily migraines. You have plantercysteritisorama, I think, on your big toe. You get up at 5:30 to take care of your family (and your mother-in-law) and you don't even nap. But through it all you laugh. You have always been the funny one in our huge family. People say, "Oh no, if you think Sue is funny, you have to meet Sarah." So Sarah this is short and yet we've lived so many years now. You made me come out to Mommy as we kneeled at her casket. "Sue, is there something you want to share with mom?" You are always there and patient when I am being way too bi-polar. So I just wanted to thank you for being my little sister. But I'm freaking not peeling potatoes at Thanksgiving. I'll make the whiskey balls.
Love, Sue