Editor's Column

by Benjamin Tertin

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index
Previous Editor's Columns | Send mail to The Voice

I Dropped My Baby Sister
Off a Bridge

With one end of a rope attached to Nellie, our family's German shorthair, and the other tied to a plastic sled, I gave my youngest sister her final instructions.

"Hold onto the sides, don't drag your mittens on the ice -- and don't tell Mom," I said. Three-year-old Julie nodded and smiled, gripping the green sled.

I hollered "Hunt 'em outta there!" at the well-trained bird dog, and Nellie knew that meant she was allowed to take off running.

She bolted across the frozen west bay of Brown's Lake in Burlington, Wis., dragging the sled and my sister through a long cloud of snow.

When I gave three sharp blasts on the whistle, Nellie knew she should head back to me. She turned on a dime, whipped that sled around and sent my tightly bundled little sister tumbling head over heels through the chilly snow drifts.

Running to Julie's rescue, I chuckled, knowing I would find no tears.

She lay sprawled out on the ice, her hat missing, her tiny face covered in snow and her small red hand wiping slush from her eye sockets. She only giggled and squealed, "Again, again!"

The high-speed adventure was already her third that day, and being the overly cautious big brother that I was, I decided it should be her last. If the afternoon ended with a hypothermia-related trip to the emergency room, I would be grounded.

A serious grounding would have resulted, too, if Mom had ever known about Julie's accidental plunge from a Tennessee bridge into the ankle-deep creek below. Thank goodness that drama had taken place the previous year when my innocent sister was still too young to know how to talk.

I believed that, as an older brother, my duty was to help my baby sister learn the skills of true woodsmanship. Forget the pink headband with the lacy white flower hugging her nearly bald head. This sister of mine had so much to discover, and I had to teach her.

Part of authentic woodsmanship, of course, was learning how to throw rocks off the neighbor's driveway bridge into the creek below. Julie sat next to me, our feet dangled off the bridge's side, and I held her with one arm around her shoulder.

A moving bicycle distracted me.

I looked to see who approached.

It was Christy, my 9-year-old sister, who was two years younger than me. Half-turning my upper body to the right to greet one sister, I accidentally shoved my youngest sister with my left arm.

I felt Julie slip from my side, and horror filled me.

Her tiny body seemed to float down as my mind attempted to comprehend what I had just done. "Smack!"

She hit the water face-first. I scrambled down the 10-foot bank, jumped into the water and pulled the stunned baby from the water.

Julie was too young to know she should cry. That, or the gasping for air prevented her from doing so. Christy and I cleaned the sand from her face and vowed that news of this grave mistake would never reach our mother's ears.

These events, and others, told me that Julie's resilience and sense of adventure had been grossly underestimated by my parents. God did not give me any brothers, but at least He gave me a hardcore sister.

When I captured a copperhead pit-viper sunning itself on the bricks of our front doorstep, it was Julie who held open the lid on our pet box. Dad built us that box with a plexiglass lid and screen windows. He said we could keep turtles, frogs and snakes in it "for no longer than one day and only to look at."

When Julie was too tiny to reach the scrap-wood steps ascending to my 54-foot-high tree house, I looped a rope underneath her armpits and pulled her up.

When Julie called me from Minnesota to ask for my opinion about each young man who had asked her to the prom and for advice on what to do when everyone started drinking, a mist collected in my eye.

Her adventures have changed, and I'm not within arm's reach to lasso any ropes around her. I feel weak; I feel helpless.

Can I keep her safe in the face of adult life? No, I have to relinquish this task to the One who created us and trust that His power is greater than a big brother's could ever be.

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index
Previous Editor's Columns | Send mail to The Voice