Brotherly/Sisterly Love

What happened to the time? Like just the other day, Sheldon and I were at UNC holding this brand new baby boy, starting our new life out together as a family. When I think back to those days, I also realize how young Sheldon and I were. Sheldon had just turned 23, and I was only a couple of weeks shy of 24.



Chase was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I had a difficult delivery with him, with some very frightening moments, for he and I. I remember seeing him and just like the new country song, I did see God that day. I will tell you, if you ever doubt there is a God, just look at a precious newborn.



I blinked my eyes and Chase was turning one. Chase has always been a light at the end of my tunnel. He makes me grin now, just like he did when he was a toddler. He always seemed to know when someone needed a smile.



What seemed like a few days later, Chase was two, and we had a second baby on the way. Just like every Mom I have ever talked to, I was petrified that I would not love the next like I loved Chase. How could I? I had experienced a love that was unimaginable. I remember the night I went into labor like it was just yesterday. My mom came to pick Chase up after she and John finished their Friday night routine of eating at Clarksville Station. When she left with my Chase, I sobbed harder than I had since I was a child myself. It hurt my heart that the next time I saw him, he would not be my only baby. This might have been the first time I realized the love of a mother and her child.



Mackenzie Claire Perkins was born the next day, with a great delivery. She was the tiniest thing we had ever seen, weighing only 5 lbs 15oz. Mom and John brought Chase to see us a few hours after her birth. And by the way, I was already in love with her, and knew that I could love two children. Chase came in to see his baby sis-ser. He loved her immediately. He was intrigued with her hair, rubbing her head over and over. We were the perfect little family. Everything was perfect....until the nurse came it to take Mackenzie to the nursery to get her vitals and such.

Our sweet baby boy, our perfect child, our son that everybody commented on how good he was, threw the worst fit one could ever imagine. He screamed at the top of his lungs because they had taken his baby away. I guess in his little mind, he had waited all this time to get her, and they just took her.



We remind Chase of this story occasionally. Since he and Mac argue all the time now. I cannot seem to make him understand that one day they will need each other. I try to remind myself that my brother and I use to fight and argue to. I am sure if Mom was here she would tell me that we were just as bad as Chase and Mac, but I would probably doubt her.



I look at the two of them and just wonder. Will Mac cry at Chase's wedding as I did at Tim's? Will Chase hold Mac in a time of a crisis and let her cry on his shoulder,even though his heart is as crumbled as hers, as Tim has for me? Will Mac try to "adopt" Chase's first born, as I did with Tim's? Will Chase secretly protect Mac when she is a freshman at OHS and he is a big time Senior, as Tim did with me? Will I sit back one day and giggle because Mac and Chase are whining to me that their own children are argueing and they are swearing that they never argued like that when they were young!