Before "I" was there

This picture was taken in 1961, when I was two years old. The school where my father taught had a home economics department where my mother helped the girls learn how to sew. One evening they had a show to model all the outfits they made. We got conscripted to be part of this, much to my cranky dismay. Mother made our clothes and the darling little drawstring bags my sister and I carried. Wasn't she something? Apparently, the crinoline was scratching my legs, and it was past my bedtime. It was all my mother could do to get me to hold it together long enough to go out on the stage.

I always laugh when I see this picture because of how we look. To most people we are just cute little kids. But I know that my sister was being the good older sibling by trying to model good decorum and encourage us to behave ourselves. My brother was nervous, as seen by the way he's standing on the sides of his shoes. He could have cared less about the crowd of people there. He had to hold his two sister's hands--which was challenge enough. Then there I was, tired, hating every minute of having to stand there in front of people I didn't know. There probably didn't seem to be a point to it.

I don't remember one moment of this event. It is just a memory because I have a picture of it. Yet it was a prophecy of how all three of us kids would be today: Sissie, still the older sister who instructs, encourages, and tries to model good things for us; my older brother who remains anxious about a number of things, yet is so good natured; and me, who would just as soon be off in a corner with one or two people I know--still cranky sometimes, and crying because some things just don't fit well.
It was all true then, before I, as I know myself now, was even there.