When I was almost 12 years old, my youngest sister was born. I quickly took on the role as self-proclaimed second mom to the newest little member of our family. I was the oldest of 5 now, and I owned that role.
Before she was born, my parents had narrowed their name choices down to two names, Harmony or Melody. They let the four of us big siblings talk it out, and choose what to name our baby sister. We chose Melody.
I still remember the day she was born. At the time, we lived in a tiny town in Tennessee, where everyone knew everyone. The gifts rolled in, and everything was pink. I’m pretty sure for the first year of her life, Melody wore nothing but pink! She became known as the “pink one”. We even made up a ridiculous song about it, and we could probably all still sing it. We really should have done that at her wedding!
Being the youngest, Melody had lots of nicknames over the years. I think all four of us siblings called her something different. To me she was Melsie. She was my little mascot all through high school. She sat on the front row of all my basketball games. My team LOVED her. She even tagged a long with me on dates. When I left home for college, my little mascot was 7.
Just this past weekend, our entire family was together again to witness the last of us, our sweet little pink one, marry the man of her dreams, Braxton Allred. To quote my dad’s toast, “Mel is going from the pink one, to All-red!”
To me, Melody will always be Melsie, or Mel, or as my kids call her, Mel-Mel. And she’ll always be my baby sister. Her wedding weekend was wonderful. She married an amazing guy. We braved wind, rain, and cold to get the most perfect first look pictures. We ate Chick-Fil-A at her reception, because that’s what she wanted. We saw family members we hadn’t seen in decades. We saw and felt, true, never-ending, happy, love.
I cannot believe my baby sister is MARRIED!!!!
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