Skye Damara Parks

Seeing as it is #nationalsiblingsday, I just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge my dear co-offpsirng, whom I love dearly. In honor of this day, I will narrate one of my favorite Jhade stories. 

Men, this will make you uncomfortable...so you may want to skip out of this one.

You've been warned.

My father's family takes an annual trip to the Indiana dunes.

We all piled into vans and trucks, stuffed with snacks,sleeping bags, and pranking materials, to then return sun-burnt, bug-bitten, with sand in areas you didn’t realize you could get sand in...

The last year I joined such a joyous caravan, Jhade was menstruating.

The whole point of this trip is to wade deep into the waves of band-aid infested lake water and swallow as much as you can while your uncle dunks you, and she of course didn’t want to miss out.

Which meant...she must learn about the tampon.

My mother stood in the bathroom closet, while verbally coaching my sibling through the process.

Now Jhade’s way of handling confusing, upsetting, or stressful situations is to cry and verbally assault others, in the most loving and Christlike manner. 

So after roughly twenty minutes of hearing weeping wafting out from the bathroom, she emerges, walking with the swagger of someone who has just aced an advanced calculus test.

“Hey. Skye. Umm, I don’t know if you know this, but...I’m wearing a tampon.”

*hair flip*

For the next three days, we conversed of nothing but her ability to now insert a cotton cork with a majestic ease.

Fast forward to our second day of camping, our first day of being on the lake.

Everyone is out in the water, the waves are fairly high, it’s a good day.

...Until I hear frantic screeching and the sound of a my sibling calling for me from the shore line.

I reluctantly swim back, and she meets me at the edge of the water.

“Skye, SKYE it’s gone.” *sobs*

“...What’s gone?”

“SKYE, it’s gone.”

“I’m still-”

*deep breath* “My. Tampon. Is. Gone.”

“....how-”

“It fell out. It’s just gone. And I don’t, it’s just, it’s gone.”

“Well, I guess you can-”

“JUST SHUT UP! I know what I’m doing, just shh and stop talking. Just go.”

Exasperated, I go back out to the water. Not a full two minutes later, I hear my innocent, blissfully ignorant cousin scream out,

“EWW what is that?!”

...Apparently it was not 'just gone.’

It was very much here.

The dialogue about the mysterious floating thing climaxed with my six-year-old (male) cousin declaring,

“Eww, I THINK IT'S A SAUSAGE.”

I splashed and flailed to the best of my ability to, umm, hurry along the floating away of the ‘sausage.’

And then I threw up in my mouth, because I accidentally swallowed some water.

Happy national siblings day to my favorite baby sister.

Fair Farren, Dear Ones