The Good Sister

From Memory

My sister Anna has always been a very special person to me. She was beautiful, considerate, kind, generous, sweet, smart, diligent and nice to everybody in our Lee family. The only weakness she had was that she could not say "NO" to anyone. When I was growing up, I always wanted to be like Anna. So she was my role model. She was a very good student and a very obedient daughter to our parents, so naturally she became our parents' favorite. Because she was such a good sister to all our siblings, we were not jealous of her. Instead we all call her "good sister".

I got closer to Anna when I went to the same college - University of Illinois. She was the most popular girl in our Chinese Student Club in Illinois. I was very fortunate that I became popular being her little sister. We sometimes had double dates together. After Anna got married to Jim, they would always invite me for dinner with them on Sundays when there was no dinner served at my dormitory. I usually looked forward to the Sundays, so I could taste the delicious Chinese food, and watch Ed Sullivan Show on TV. I never got chance to wash the dirty dishes, but instead Anna and Jim would fight to wash every time. They were like two love birds.

I followed Anna's footstep and also got married to a Chinese student from University of Illinois. And by luck I followed her to have 2 daughters and 1 son, and finally a grandchild just like Anna. So we had a lot in common. Even though Anna and I lived quite far away, and we did not meet too often when our children were young, but we often wrote letters to each other. I loved to receive her letters, which always filled with several pages. During our parents' last 9 years in Los Angeles, every year Anna and I would visit our parents together for a week during our mother's birthday in April. We would rent-a-car together at the airport. She would be the navigator, and I would be the driver. I could never remember the car plate, but I was so impressed that Anna could memorize our car plate in one glance. She was so good with numbers, no wonder she was an excellent accountant.

Anna was a wonderful sister. I will miss her very much, but I am so grateful that I have so many happy memories with her.