I was born as the youngest of three boys and I always secretly loathed it. Some of you might remember the comedian Mark Lowry who did a bit about birth orders.

“The first born gets all the snapshots, all the videos, all the birth rights. The second born gets some photos and some video taken because it’s still exciting to have another baby. The third born is lucky to get his footprints on his birth certificate.”

It was easy to feel this way growing up. It’s not that my parents didn’t pay attention to me, I just had to do a lot to stand out. My oldest brother got the brains of the family. He had straight A’s, ran multiple events in track, played the saxophone, and got a perfect score (you heard me right) on the ACTs. My middle brother was the jock of the family. While he was so-so academically back then, he rocked the football field every Friday night and even began racing go-carts in high school: a bonding event that brought he and my dad infinitely closer than they were originally. And myself, I was in the kid in the corner eating paste and putting crayons up his nose while plinking on the Fisher Price plastic piano. Yes, I got the musical talent, but it was a lot harder to get my dad as excited for my 7th grade band concert or Quiz Bowl tournament as he was for Brett’s football games. I don’t house any resentment for these facts, on the contrary my dad was always very supportive of the few events I was in and to this day supports every decision I made (except for the ear piercing and side-tattoo but that’s a different story). It was just always difficult to measure up to the great things my brothers had accomplished.

As if living in the shadows of my siblings wasn’t difficult enough, living WITH my brothers was a completely different story. As the youngest, it was my job to be the lightning rod of hatred and ridicule growing up. If I wasn’t being shoved face first into a snow drift during Ohio’s 5 snow-filled months, I was either being pinned to the floor and forced to make a generous donation to Travis in the form of all my allowance, ordered to take the blame for Brett’s eating of the last cupcake before dinner or convinced that the dog turd I held in my hand was actually dark chocolate. Oh, how I longed to be bigger than someone; just to have someone I could pick on. I swore that if I ever got a little brother or sister I was going to be boss but since I had no younger sibling, I often tried these tactics by letting the cat know I was in charge. But Calico would just hiss at me, walk outside and pee in my shoe while staring me straight in the eye. That cat was bold, I’ll give her that.

Fast forward many years to the summer of 2005. I was a greasy faced, college-bound freshman and my dad had just married my now step-mother, Rita. With the marriage of my dad to Rita my childhood dreams were about to come true. I would finally have a sister younger than myself that I could show who was boss. I longed for this day; I dreamed about how I would make it known that I was alpha male. Unfortunately, if any of you know Sarah, you already know that her personality is not one of submission. Instead, I found myself being afraid of her for the first few months we lived together. Having had only brothers before, I assumed the natural order of things would be very similar. I would beat her up if she got out of line and force her to eat animal feces and blame her for cleaning out the cookie jar but what was actually happened was quite the contrary.

The very first memory I have of when Sarah lived with our new hybrid family revolved around her coming home late for curfew from a friend’s house. I was sitting on the couch watching Animal Planet as her truck lights came up the long, gravel driveway. Please keep in mind that in an old farm house like the one I grew up in, there is absolutely no way to sneak inside without waking every person therein. Every door hinge and floorboard would announce your presence as if you were royalty descending a staircase at the Spring Debutante Ball. So as she entered, the symphony of cracks, creaks, groans and squeaks woke our parents from their slumber and the amount of screaming that erupted next had the neighbors thinking that our house had become a brothel for cats. It all ended with Sarah shouting in a typical, hormonal teenage-girl fashion “I hate you all! You’re ruining my life!” and storming up the stairs and slamming her door. It was at that point that I realized that any dreams I had of having any sort of authority in this relationship was not going to happen and I would be forced, yet again, to endure the bitter taste of submission…and dog droppings…

Thankfully, as with most teenage girls, Sarah grew up and matured into a respectable woman and one of my closest friends, not that we had much choice. Where we lived in Ohio, it literally took you 45 minutes to drive to the nearest Walmart and over an hour to get to the nearest mall. Meanwhile, all your friends wanted to do was drink cheap beer they stole from their dad or drive their new “muddin'” jeep through the field to beat raccoons which they would then turn into seat covers for their aforementioned jeep (true story…). We would spend my summers home from college hanging out on the porch under the evening sky or sneaking a wine cooler or hard lemonade (because we’re rebels like that) into the hot tub after our parents had been asleep for several hours so as to make sure the coast was clear. We forged a great friendship the summer between my Sophomore and Junior years, talking about girls I liked, boys she was dating, her dropping out of college to go to beauty school and my useless degree program and, above all, driving to McDonalds to get $1 cokes.

It sounds stupid, but when you have nothing else to do you make due with what you can which is why we would often find ourselves on the couch watching America’s Funnies Home Videos at 11pm, glancing at one another and saying “Dollar Coke time”. It was great way to burn about an hour and a quarter tank of gas but it was those late night drives that I hold onto most this day. And the tradition continues into the present. Even now we will surprise one another with a coke from McDonalds when we’ve had a rough day or even after we’ve worked out because, come on, we’ve earned it.

We were both sad when I decided to move out here to Philly in a relatively short amount of time so you could imagine how excited I was each and every time Sarah would come out to visit. In fact, the first time she came to visit I had already been in Pennsylvania for over a year and was already in the Men Den after six long months of living with Creepy Jon. I did everything I could to make the house look good and told anyone that would listen about how excited I was that she was coming to visit. I took the week off and arranged a wide array of events for us to do, some with our parents and some without. We went to the city, Reality (read as Bible Study) on Thursday, and I planned a huge karaoke night for Friday night and a trip to the Camden Aquarium for the following morning. I was going to do everything in my power to convince her that Pennsylvania was where she was meant to be.

Prior to her arrival, I warned all my roommates that she was coming and even began talking her up to my buddy Dave. Before her visit, however, I guess I hadn’t mentioned her much because to this day Dave attests that he was scared she would look like me with longer hair, not knowing we were actually only step siblings. I’m fairly certain that to this day that image haunts his nightmares. Regardless, I told all my friends and roommates to be on their best behavior and even began talking her up to Dave whom I thought would make a suitable match for her.

With her arrival came many hugs and a few tears of excitement, a tour of the Mutter Museum and a walk around the city, and after a few days our parents departed to visit my brother in New York leaving Sarah in my care. That evening, I threw a party at the Men Den in her honor, making my best known and favorite dishes and inviting all our friends over so as to show her off. Sarah offered to give facials and manicures to those who asked in an attempt to exhibit what she had learned in beauty academy the year prior. While giving Paul a facial massage downstairs, her phone rang…it was her boyfriend, Devon. And while rhythmically and delicately exfoliating Paul’s skin, Sarah burst into tears and broke up with Devon over the phone (talk about awkward…sorry Paul…). She ran up the stairs and into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Things were going better than I had planned…I always wanted them to break up and the fact that it happened now seemed God ordained. After calming her down, the party continued and little to my knowledge, Dave began formulating a plan.

The following day, I had to go to work for a few hours and while I was gone Dave and Sarah began to “talk” about what happened with Devon. Like a buzzard to a fresh piece of road kill, Dave swooped in on the shattered remains of her relationship and set up camp, the sly bastard (said with love, sir). And that evening, as we sat in the smoke filled dive of a karaoke bar and displayed our best Blink 182 and Grease song talents, Dave and Sarah began to forge a friendship.

All these memories and more flashed before my mind as the music began to play but vanished instantly and were replaced with a new one as the doors at the back of the church opened a radiant woman in a white dress and brown bangs curled to frame her picturesque face began to glide down the aisle. I held back tears as I beamed with pride as I realized that the woman standing before me was no longer the whiney teenage girl I knew and loved but was now a beautiful, mature grown-up. At that moment I would have wanted to be nowhere else than standing beside Dave and watching them take their vows before God and our friends and family. I did my best to take in every detail I could but found myself so overwhelmed that it was all I could do to maintain a stoic face and I nearly succeeded at making it through the entire ceremony with my dignity and manhood intact but failed miserably as they said their vows and turned to take communion and pray while David Crowder’s “Oh How He Loves Us” began to play; a song that to this day overwhelms me and reduces me to a weeping pile of a man. It was a perfect moment, my sister and one of my closest friend vowing their love for another but making sure that God remains their true love in life: a statement I also vowed to uphold.

As if I weren’t enough of a pansy for getting all estrogenical at this point, I also had the privilege of singing Allison Krauss’ “When You Say Nothing At All” at the reception at which point I balled like a schoolgirl yet again. While it wouldn’t have been my first choice of song, it is what Sarah wanted. It again took all my strength to maintain my stage presence as I stared at the lifeless fish eyes of the distant relatives and friends I didn’t know and trying to avoid looking at Sarah or my step mother for fear of breaking down. And it gets better still. Sitting next to John, Lauren, and several other friends, I broke down yet again as my dad and step mom danced next to Sarah and Dave to Stephen Curtis Chapman’s “I Will Be Here”. Now this song, corny as it may be, has special meaning as I sang it at my dad’s wedding to Rita so I think I deserve some kind of pass on this one, right?

Thankfully, the evening ended with me breaking it down. On the dance floor, that is. I will say that while I have little to no experience in dancing I tend to go a bit nuts at weddings. It’s the one time I feel I am surrounded by friends and family who already know me and since I never take dates to weddings I have no one to impress. I am a slave to no one but the rhythm. So enjoy the miscellaneous photos below as I go grab myself a tissue and do something manly to regain what little reputation I have after this pathetic feminine display of emotion.

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