Bebs

Today is my sister Elizabeth's birthday.  She is the middle girl of three sisters.  She is very important in our family.  She is the sibling that everyone wants so that they can say, "Well, at least I am not as bad as her/him."  All of us Ryan kids were bad but in different ways.  My big sister, Maureen, was a witch.  But she went from a wicked witch when I was a kid, to a nice witch when I grew up.  Janie, the youngest child was bad but she had the gift of making people think she was good.  The baby of the family gets away with a lot.  Parents are too tired and old to pay all that much attention.  So Janie could say, "At least I am not as bad as Bebs."  This kind of gave Janie a pass in her conscience.  She and Bebs hung around with friends who were bad too.  Party, party.  Janie is better now.  I was bad and stayed bad for a long time.  I tried to hang around with holy people so I would have a cover and maybe get good.  I am a work in progress, but thank God for Bebs.  I use her as an excuse for not trying to improve myself.  "At least I am not as bad as Bebs."  Now she has gotten a lot better but we siblings cannot afford to accept that because then we cannot use her as an excuse to keep our bar of good behavior as low as we want.  We all do this with coworkers, associates in volunteer associations, school moms, and I do it with priests.  We all like someone we can judge as worse than we are at the moment.  "I am fat?  Well, look at her! At least I am not that fat."  And on it goes.  But to my skinny little sister, Elizabeth, Happy Birthday.  I love you unconditionally.