Memoirs of a Shimai

My mother made my sister and I perform in 2 talent shows when I was in Kindergarten.  There was a church talent show that I do not remember and my Kindergarten “graduation” talent show. We sang the same song at both shows and my mom made us wear these matching puffyish white shirts and blue and white striped pants.  I hated that outfit.  I definitely remember that.  And we both sat in these tiny red rocking chairs for our song.  We sang the Sister Song from Barney and apparently we made everyone in the church audience cry.  Here are the lyrics:

Sometimes we're real close friends,

we stay up late and talk at night

other times we don't get along,

there are even times we fight

but I know she's always there

and I know she'll always care

she's my sister, I love my sister

And then it repeats “she’s my sister, I love my sister” a million times after the second verse.  Perhaps it was my mother’s own relationship with her sister that inspired her choice of song.  She has one younger sister who still lives in Japan and they are about the same distance apart in age as Kellie and I.  They are best friends.

I thought Kellie was annoying until high school.  Typically sibling stuff, we fought a lot, I didn’t want her hanging around me and my friends.  But according to Kellie something magically changed one year (I don’t remember this either) at Girls Camp and poof!  We were best friends.  All of the sudden she was the person who I wanted to spend all of my time with.  One of my fondest and most random memories of us at that time are the days we would ditch seminary and sit in my car and sing “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog” extremely loud.   We were not aware that the parents sitting in their cars in the parking could hear us until after the fact.  Sometimes we would sing Journey songs.   A lot our memories together are of us in the car.

Leaving for BYU was hard because I couldn’t bear to leave her behind.  And when she got her acceptance letter in the mail we cried together on the phone.  It kills me that I won’t be there for her last year.  She has this really amazing best friend who I am kind of jealous of sometimes…she’ll probably be there for all of Kellie’s crises and mischief and for her academic triumphs and personal failures.  She’ll probably also be there when Kellie meets the man she is going to marry.  I think that part kills me the most.  Kellie watched my relationship with Jordan progress from one of my earliest encounters with him to when she witnessed the moment he proposed to me.  I cried when he got down on one knee and I balled when I saw my sister emerge from the darkness.  She was there!  My sister was there.  Will I be there for her?  I don’t know.  We always joke that it’s not my dad’s permission that her future husband will need—it’s mine.  (But it really is.)  

I’m getting ahead of myself, though.  She’s not even on this continent.  I dreaded the day she sent in her mission papers.  But I’ve been looking forward to our Japan trip since last March when Kellie opened her mission call.  We all had a feeling she’d go there.  She held on to that white envelope for over a week so she could open it in Berkeley with the whole family and I will never forget the moment she opened it—I was shaking and crying and I didn’t want her to leave (such a buzz kill, I know.)  I couldn't fathom the thought of not having her here with me for a year and a half.  It was too much.  But when she read that she would be going to Tokyo, Japan, I was OK.  Because even though she would be thousands of miles across the ocean in some ways she would be home.  She’s much closer to us in Japan than she would have been anywhere else in the world.   

I know that it was hard for her at first to find herself in Tokyo but I think that took about 2 days.  I’m sure Heavenly Father sent her there because her love for those people has been a part of her since she was a child and her heart would be more open there than anywhere else.  I wish so badly I could have served a mission in Japan too.  I’ve been there several times but my dad served his mission there and even his mother served a few months of her mission there before being transferred to the Philippines.  Maybe someday Jordan and I will be able to carry on the Julander tradition.  But until then all I can do is count down the days until I fly out of SFO to be reunited with my sister.  That will be a moment of the purest joy.  My heart swells with emotion every single time I think about it and I cry every Monday morning in my office when I read Kellie’s emails.  I love her so much.  I love her so much that I actually don’t want her to come home.  She is so happy.  She has completely lost herself in the service of others and has, from what I can gather, found herself.  It’s often hard for me to express to her my excitement and relief that I will see her again because I know that for her it will mark the end of the most cherished 18 months of her life.  She will be leaving behind the country that gave her her mother, her family, and a glimpse of what Heaven will be like.  But I’m selfish and human and I do want my sister back.  She sends us pictures most weeks and it’s strange not recognizing the clothes she is wearing and seeing the faces of people who know her and love her in a completely different way than I do.  In some ways I can’t help but think that they know the real Kellie and I’ve been missing out since she’s been gone.  I am so excited to meet her.