I want to thank everyone who made the trip here to celebrate Charles and Lindsay. For those of you who don’t know me I’m Charles “slightly” older, much wiser sister
I am standing up here today in a place I shouldn’t be, in shoes I shouldn’t be filling. The person that should be speaking today is our dad, and really a shitty substitute for him. But standing up here, I know with 1,000% confidence that this is exactly where he would want me to be, representing him. We’ve been robbed of many moments with him but today would have been at the very top of the list of things he never wanted to miss.
My brother is 5 years younger than me and I’ve always felt my role was not only big sister but also protector. That worked for most of the time…except for when I chipped his tooth or shut his arm in the door or hit him in the mouth with a lacrosse ball. Maybe its an older sibling thing or a maternal instinct but it’s always been there. We have a running joke we call “The ducks” bc there’s home video of me at maybe age 8 and my brother at 3 and I’m telling him not to feed the ducks too much bread. Charles McKay, don’t feed the ducks anymore, they’ve had too much! He was my first gig at being a mom.
Charles was an incredibly active kid, I remember him not being able to sit still much. When he got too wound up my mom would send him outside to run laps in the yard, he drew giant scenes on rolls of paper and set up his army guys in front of the landscape he created. He never loved school but he was one of the smartest people I knew. From a super young age he could do complex math without a pen and paper.
One day he found my great grandfathers old golf clubs in the garage and put a few golf balls down on the back lawn and it was all over. His love for golf was rooted. Much to our neighbor’s dismay he started hitting bombs into their yards.
Whatever he did he did with passion and energy. I always knew he’d try to do his own thing, break the mold. He had an entrepreneurial spirit, starting his own business during college for those who remember Barhopolis, and still does today. How many of you have received a text from him talking about opening his own coffee shop, brewery, etc…
When we were growing up we competed in everything. I remember hours of 1 on 1 basketball in our front driveway. I don’t remember when we started running together but it became our thing. We have run maybe 8-10 10ks. I think I’m being generous when I say he’s beat me twice and I’m not sure if you can even count the Redondo Beach 10k that was basically a fake one where we paid to have some woman give us a number at the start and a 100 calorie snack at the finish. The last one we ran together in October I was at the end waiting for him with a bottle of water.
We’ve been through a lot together…stuff that only we can understand. “To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.” – Clara Ortega
We were each other’s people, the constant in the storm of life’s obstacles…losing family pets & grandparents, our parents divorce, of the incredibly crushing grief that made life feel like it could never go on when our dad died suddenly at 48 years old.
He is my person, and I think I am his. Some girlfriends, who I won’t mention by name today, prior to Lindsay took issue with that, with how close we were. Lindsay has embraced it. She thinks it’s special and it’s one of the reasons I love her so much.
My “coming out story”, when I told Charles I was gay, is one of his favorite ones to tell. It’s filled with embellishment and a strange southern accent that I apparently developed. But it wasn’t an easy moment for me, and he handled it with the love and care everyone should be so lucky to experience. He was 21 when he met Liz (my now wife) and he embraced her like a sister. They got along too well sometimes, and spent many late nights crushing cans and blaring Dirty Diana on the speaker in our house in Baltimore. That memory stands out because I was very sober and very pregnant with McKay.
He does have an interesting pattern I should point out…the guy literally can’t stop following me around…wherever I move, he moves. Annapolis – Richmond, back to Annapolis, Baltimore, back to Annapolis, and then the biggest move, California. Most of the time he’s right behind me within a year of my move. But 20 months ago I finally followed him. He bought a house in Manhattan Beach and when I saw one less than a mile from him on the same street I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I felt like my dad has had a hand in all of those moves.
I met Lindsay on Liz’s birthday 4 years ago I think, and she hugged me immediately. I was like, ok, either you are trying to get in with the big sister or you are genuine but I’m not sure just yet. She met our boys a few weeks later on Friday movie night when we watched Home Alone. My brother introduced her as Aunt Lindsay to the kids and I thought, well, that was fast. He must really like her. I soon found out why.
Lindsay is hard not to love. She is kind hearted, hard working, & beautiful inside and out. She is young, which she reminds me a painstakingly awkward amount of times, but she is an old soul. She’s most at home when she is crafting or watching a movie and eating takeout in her pjs. And she loves my boys and they love her. She’s such a good balance for the now big kid who still can’t really sit still and who’s Scottish temper is alive and well.
I have been eagerly awaiting being an aunt to Charles and Lindsay’s kids. I joke with them all the time that I cannot wait to sniff their babies. Honestly, someone should figure out a way to bottle that shit. I hope you are blessed with many baby girls because I would be hard for any boys you had to compete with how good looking your three nephews are.
Marriage advice -I’ve been married for an eternity, right Liz? We are coming up on 13 years. I certainly don’t have all of the answers to a successful marriage but I’ll tell you what’s worked for us. In our house…the woman is always right. That may be a little more easily applied in your house! Find a way to meet each other in the middle…the biggest part about marriage is being aware that you are no longer a you, you are an us, you are a we. You need to bend your needs and wants to the needs and wants of your spouse. It will be a constant give and take. Your love will not be the same today as it is in 2, 5, 7, 10 years from now. Let it to change and grow. Because one day you will watch Charles make your baby giggle and you will look at him in a totally different light than you do today. Charles, you will watch Linds gently holding your baby at 3am when she has a 104 temperature and you will be bowled over with love for her that you never knew could reach those depths.
On behalf of my mom Sheila and my dad Charles who couldn’t be here I wanted to thank Cliff and Lisa for bringing this beautiful soul into the world so that she could one day become my brother’s world, and our world. Linds….we couldn’t be happier to have you apart of the Bisland family.