[title subtitle=”words: Stoney Stamper
images:courtesy April Stamper”][/title]
“Your brother and sister are the closest relations that you have in this world. You’ve got the same blood running through your veins. They should be your best friends.”
— My dad, Randy Stamper
Good grief, how many times did I hear this growing up? Verbatim. Too many times to count, definitely. This is what my dad said to my brother, sister and me each time we had an argument, a fight, or a disagreement of any kind. He said it. Every. Time. And I bet he laughs when he reads this, and he will read this, because I’m going to post a link to this story on Facebook, and he stalks my page (using my mom’s account, because he doesn’t have one). He reads my page, and then he checks out the local paper’s obituaries to see if he knows anyone who died. Every single day. He’s a man of routine, which I love, because it’s something that he passed along to me.
I have a sister, four years older than me, although she absolutely loves that I am generally thought to be the eldest of my three siblings, and a little brother that’s six-and-a-half years younger than me. We are fairly well spread out. Yes, I am the middle child, to no one’s surprise, I am sure. And there is a ten-and-a-half year gap between my big sister and little brother. So, basically, every time my dad told us to be best friends, he was talking to me. It was either directed at me and my sister, or me and my brother. Because Shannon and Sky never fought.
My mom and dad did an excellent job of instilling in us a love of our siblings. We are all well into our adult lives now. Shannon has two fantastic boys with her amazing husband Justin (who has been my brother now for longer than he hasn’t). And my brother Sky and his lovely little bride Ashley have a young daughter. April and I have our three girls, and we are all one big close-knit family. Shan and Sky are my best friends. If something good happens, I want to tell them. If something bad happens, I want to tell them. But like most brothers and sisters, this wasn’t always the case. Things weren’t always sunshine and rainbows.
Sure, I always loved them. But sometimes, I kind of wanted to kill them. Sometimes, probably even more often, they wanted to kill me. Or at least hit me really hard with something, in the face. Actually, they both did hit me really hard in the face, on more than one occasion. Sky hit me with an aluminum baseball bat while I was lying on the floor reading the comics in the paper, and also once with a curtain rod. Actually, to be more accurate, he threw a curtain rod at me, and stabbed it into the top of my head. He also came into the room once wearing his spurs, and only his spurs, and spurred me in my lower back. Which sucked.
And then one time, Shannon was walking down the gravel driveway, barefoot, and for some reason I had a freaking walking cane and I thought it would be a really funny idea (and it was), to hook her ankle with the cane. But it made her step funny onto a rock and hurt her foot. She then wheeled around and brought a Butterbean-style haymaker from downtown, making solid contact, squarely in my eye socket. It even made a cool “punch” noise like on the Dukes of Hazzard, when they would punch people. My eye turned really black, and I told everyone at school that I had a horse kick a pipe gate while I was closing it, and it hit me in the face. I dang sure wasn’t going to tell them that I had gotten my eye blacked by my sister. To her credit, she did feel really bad about it. I was a tough little turd, so even though it was a heck of a punch, it hurt my feelings way more than it hurt my eyeball.
There’s a pretty good chance that you have a brother, or sister, or both. And there’s also a good chance that you have had a few fights, or maybe more than a few. I know, too, that sometimes siblings don’t get along, and that makes me really sad for them. Because I know, regardless of anything I have ever done, or any fight that we may have ever had, that without fail, if I need my sister, or if I need my brother, they will be there. It is very good to know that no matter what kind of bonehead move you make—and I have made more than my fair share—that I will always have them behind me. No questions asked. Well, there may be a few questions, but they’ll still do whatever I need. My wife April says that we are abnormal, because we all get along so well. But I love them. And I like them, too. I can honestly say that we have never had a fight, or really even an argument, as adults.
There was one time that Sky and Ashley’s dog jumped on me when she was a puppy, and I pushed her away. That was my bad, little brother, and I’m sorry. It was one hundred percent involuntary, and I felt really bad about it. But that dog loves the crap out of me now. Because she knows how awesome I am, I guess. I don’t know, I’m just assuming that. I’m not a dog whisperer, or anything.
So, as I watch my own family, when I see our Abby holding Gracee, kissing her and telling her she loves her, I smile. And when I see Emma read Gracee a story before bedtime, and I see Gracee’s face light up, it makes me feel like we are, at least, doing one thing right. Abby and Emma are wonderful big sisters. They love Gracee with all of their might, and that just tickles me pink. I know they will always have each other.
No, they don’t always get along. Sometimes they fight. But the other day, you know what I said to them when they were fighting? Yeah, you know what I said. I said, “Girls, your sisters are the closest relations that you have in this world. You’ve got the same blood running through your veins. They should be your best friends.”
I’m pretty sure I caught some eye rolling from both of the older girls. But maybe, if I keep saying it for the next twenty years or so, it’ll stick. It worked for me and my siblings. Good job, Mom and Dad.
