HAPPY BIRTHDAY DELIRIOUS!

Today is my younger sister, Delirious' birthday! Since Delirious was about what - 6 or 8? when I got married, I don't have a lot of memories. In fact this first memory I don't really remember exactly, but I have a very faint memory of it:

When Delirious was born, my mom had to go back into the hospital. I think she was only a few weeks old. My grandmother came to visit and take care of us, Delirious, and Mom after she got out of the hospital, but before Grandma got there, Mom was hospitalized. I think some kind of kidney infection. Mom was so worried that Dad wouldn't wake up when Delirious woke up for her night feedings. Maybe I sensed her worry, I don't know, but Mom says that when Dad did wake up in the middle of the night and looked at the clock he thought he had overslept and not heard Delirious cry. Then he heard something and he looked over and there I sat in the chair feeding Delirious her bottle. Dad went back to sleep, and a few hours later he woke up and did the same thing - wondered if he had overslept. Once again, he looked over, and there I was feeding the baby again. I was about 8 or 9 years of age at this time. When I was a child, I LOVED babies. I adopted Sticks, Delirious and our youngest brother as "my" babies. The only reason I didn't adopt Twist is because I was only 3 when he was born. :0)

I loved having Mom, Dad, Delirious and my brothers come to visit me after I got married. One time Delirious had come for a visit when she was still young, she came to me and said, "Nene, can I snoop in your house?" I thought that was so funny - she was curious and wanted to look in my drawers, cabinets, and closets, but was polite enough to ask first.

My children LOVED having Delirious come to visit, because their favorite thing to do when Delirious and my brothers came, was to play "hide and seek". Now this was not your normal "hide and seek" game. Delirious and my brothers used to make "clothing dummies" - sort of dummies out of clothes that they had stuffed to look like a person. They would "hide" these dummies in beds, etc. so it would look like someone was in the bed.

I remember when Delirious came back from her mission in Taiwan. I was so excited that she was going to have a long lay-over in our airport! Unfortunately her plane was over an hour late (can't remember how late it was). I was Enrichment Leader and had a big Enrichment meeting that night. When I found out how late her plane was going to be, I called the Enrichment Counselor and asked her if she could do the Enrichment meeting herself so I could stay at the airport. (And actually, I was going to leave and take all the stuff to her since it was in my car, and then come back to the airport). She freaked and said she couldn't possibly do it. (It wasn't that big of a deal.) I seriously thought about just not showing up, but then I decided to do my duty. When Delirous got there, I only had time to walk her to her next terminal and gate, give her a hug and tell her goodbye. I cried all the way to church, being so mad that the counselor wouldn't help me. When I got to church, she said to me, "Oh, I'm so sorry, you should have just stayed." I said to her, "Well, that's why I called you, to see if YOU would do it, but you said no." I felt so bad having to leave Delirious there to wait 2 hours more until her plane came. (I couldn't have gone back, since it was an hour's drive home from the airport and would have taken another hour to drive back.)

I remember when Delirous came to stay with me when I had Survival Knife. I think she had only gotten there the day before. My pains started and I knew my husband was still in school and I couldn't get in touch with him (this was before cell phones). It would be 2-3 more hours until he got out of school. I was afraid to wait too long before going to the hospital, so I went into my bedroom and prayed that I would know for sure that I was in labor. Within just a few minutes I knew I was. So we loaded up the rest of the kids and Delirious drove me to the hospital. Even though the hospital was clear across town, we only had to go down one street to get to it. I told her that coming back, once she got close to our neighborhood, the kids would be able to tell her where to turn.

Delirious is a wonderful person and a great sister! I am so proud of the woman she has become. She is still fun to be around, and when she and I and Inklings get together, for me it is enough to just sit and talk and talk and talk...like I need to fill up my "sister" reservoir so it will last until the next time I can see them.
HAVE A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY DELIRIOUS! I LOVE YOU!