My older sister, Pat, always seemed to be a little put out that she had to share her parents with younger siblings. She is 8 years older than me, and didn't play with me or my other 2 sisters. But I remember the time she started making up stories for the long road trip to northern Michigan every summer, to camp at Pentoga Park. She named her protagonist Mr. Blue Blob. She told us she had gotten the stories from a book by the same name. We were absolutely mesmerized by the adventures of this blue worm (or maybe he was a caterpillar). I imagined him wearing a hat. I don't recall just exactly what the adventures were, but the stories always held our interest, and we always begged for more. It wasn't until I was older, that I realized she was making up the stories as she went along. She should have been a writer.
Then there was the time, when I was about 10 years old and my father was in the hospital recovering from one of his heart attacks, that she taught me how to play canasta. We played for hours on end; I don't remember who won or lost those games, but it didn't matter. It helped to fill the void, left temporarily by my father's absence.
She's in the hospital now, in Reno, Nevada, dying of heart disease.
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