APRIL 20, 2021 – Today my bigger sis Elsa turns a big number. I say “bigger,” because we both have a “biggest” sister (see 4/11/21), each of whom is “big” when it comes to brains and beauty, though not in physical stature.
Even if Elsa were my junior, she’d still be my superior. She always knew right from wrong and taught me the difference. When Elsa learned that a young neighbor kid and I had been unkind to a bird, her moral indignation left an indelible impression.
Elsa doesn’t merely have a sense of right and wrong. Anyone who knows her knows she’ll always do what’s right. And when she says she’ll do something for a person, that person can depend on Elsa carrying through.
Elsa’s moral and intellectual integrity is closely related to her high standards in all endeavors. Nothing she touches is done halfway or haphazardly. She assigns A-plus effort to every task, large and small.
Before retirement, her high standards produced the most melliferous results on the concert stage. From an early age Elsa aspired to be a concert violinist (See third-grade essay, “What I want to be when I grow up.”) She combined her exceptional talent with an unrelenting work ethic to reach the rarified world of world-class artists. Yet, in keeping with the Grand Paradox of Perfectionism, in her own ear, her playing could never be “perfect,” because to think so would prove it wasn’t.
Apart from my other two sisters, our parents and . . . okay, my brothers-in-law, I don’t know anyone who could possibly love music more than Elsa does. Though she can no longer play without physical pain, she remains a discerning “consumer” of great music. Her enthusiasm alone gives life to music.
All of which would haunt me terribly if Elsa didn’t have the means it took to forgive me after I nearly ended her career before it started. One evening she was leaning against the doorway leading into the den. Her left pinky hung just over the sharp-edged stop on the hinged side of the door. We’d just “exchanged words” and in response to her getting the last word, I slammed the door as she stood by our mother, who was seated at the phone desk next to the doorway, calling someone on Elsa’s behalf.
The next sounds were “CRUNCH!” and a blood-curdling scream. The finger got reattached by a brilliant “on-call” surgeon at the nearby Ferry Street house that had been converted into our town’s “hospital.”
If I deserved to have my head handed to me, Elsa, with her super-human heart, found a way to forgive me. To recognize her magnanimous amnesty, the next day I rode my over-sized bike to Anoka Drug and bought a “doe with fawns on mirror” chotchke. “Here,” I said. “To make you feel better.” For years thereafter she graciously displayed it atop the dresser she shared with our “biggest” sis.
For years to come may Elsa display her genuine goodness as well as her greatness.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
