Sisters' Cow Fever

I have a younger sister whom I mostly refer to as my "little sister". Its a private joke. We're only about a year and a half difference in age and for a long time I thought we were twins, because she was always the same size as me. She eventually overtook me in size when we got older. I am five foot four inches and she's probably close to 5'11" (she always said she was 5'8" growing up and I believed her! Pah!). Anyway, when we were little, adults would ask me that question, "Are you girls twins?", in grocery stores and other places, and I always said yes, and then my "little" sister would correct me. It wasn't till I started grade school, ahead of her, that I realized that I was different and also, possibly had an advantage. We were raised Catholics and my little sister and I went to a Catholic school. I was indoctrinated at a very young age on the cult of Jesus, and he was great for suffering. As it happened, my sister suffered a lot. This was when she was five and we were new in the neighborhood. She used to get picked on by some of the neighbor kids, well one in particular. I remember her coming home crying from some incident where the girl who was supposed to be her best friend, had pushed her into the bushes or pulled her hair. I remember ( and she remembers this too) telling her that Jesus loved her (when I was seven!) and that i would protect her. I also remember hugging her and all that, and trying to stop her crying. There is a lot to be said about birth order and behavior. My dad, who is almost 80, and having some problems with memory loss and old age in general, tells us now how his older brother always took care of him, and still is: taking him to the doctor, making sure he has all his prescriptions, keeping us kids informed. This is a good thing about family. I feel like my older sister is similar and frankly, sometimes she acts more like my mother than my own mother!


When we were in our early twenties, my little sister was visiting me at college, and I had a friend whose parents were farmers. My friend took us over to his parents place, so we could see the woods and go for a walk. We had to cut through this pasture to get to the woods and so we had to walk through this field that had a couple of cows resident. The cows tried to stampede us, well sort of. My sister has brought this up a number of times recently. I asked her why this had such an impact and she said because cows aren't supposed to behave this way. They are supposed to be gentle and quiet and sweet, but I think she has been watching too many movies. I guess this must have been one of those traumatic, life changing experiences for her.


Now I have had some experiences with cows. This wasn't the first field I had been chased out of by a bovine. From my view, they appear rather slow and thoughtful (er stupid is probably closer to the truth), but it is possible for them to sometimes get anxious or feel threatened. Fortunately though, it has been my experience that thoughts do not come very quickly to a cow, and they usually chew on it for quite a few minutes, which gives you sometime to realize their intentions. On this particular occasion, we were in this pasture, headed to the woods: my sister, myself and my friend. My friend was distracted by the gate and had turned around. All of a sudden these two cows lunged toward us. Well they did not move that fast, but it totally startled my sister and I. The thing that got me, was not the cows coming at us, but our response to them. For my sister, I think the adrenaline kicked in and she went into survival mode. I tried to get in front of her and I swear to God, she, on the other hand, was pushing me out of the way and knocked me face first on the ground, (I'm exaggerating because i never actually fell) so she could have a clear shot at a run in the other direction. Fortunately, my friend noticed the whole thing, before the two of us trampled each other in our panic to do something. He shouted a couple of WHOA WHOA and waved his hands. This was enough to make the cows stop in their tracks and run the other direction.


My sister and I have a lot of shared experiences. We don't talk about any of this too often, and it is surprising to hear, sometimes, her perception and memory of various incident that we experienced together. For her this incident was some kind of traumatic experience, for me it was just something new I learned about my sister, and now that I think of it, the way we responded probably had more to do with the roles we had within our family.
For a long time, one of my measures of human worth based on behavior, is whether I would want to be stranded on a desert island with a person. Since this incident, I had decided that my sister was not a good candidate. I've changed my mind about that. Actually, both my sisters have been there for me recently, providing me with much needed emotional support, and just a little bit of good advice to get me through some very tough times. I have decided that I am very lucky, and very glad that they are here helping me.