Sonya holding her dog Lumpy, he died from cancer the next day.

I hear a fair amount of stories in my line of work, I sometimes hear sob stories, war stories and even the rare bedtime tale.  None have touched me as the story I am about to tell you and unfortunately this one hits close to home.  This is about my sister who shall remain unnamed.  We will just to refer to her as Sonya-Lisa during this article.  Sonya was always a sad young lass whether it was due to her affliction of dwarfism or the many lunches she spent alone.  Lets move on….It all started when she spent her first Christmas without her father who left us.  Money was tight that year so all she could do was hold her dog Lumpy for comfort.  This began her career of no good and general disdain for her father!

Over the years she began a life of criminal activities ranging from holding up old women at bingo games to stealing from my piggy bank.  All I could do was sit idly by and watch the sister I love fall into a deeper and deeper pit of despair.  She finally hit what Pink Floyd would refer to as “The Wall” and found herself surrounded by police after robbing change and stealing the bell from a salvation army volunteer at Christmas.  She was holed up in a dumpster muttering the lyrics to “The little boy that Santa Claus forgot.”

The little girl that Santa forgot hanging with friends Baharupa and Bob.

Some people find religion in a bottle but while in prison my sister found it in the wisdom of Mr Myagi in “The Next Karate Kid” she found the Buddhist monks dancing very spiritual and brought her some sense of fulfillment.  I guess years of being jaded by Santa brought her down this path.  She then ran out and purchased  a mini Buddha and started chanting some stuff she found on Google.  I was never more proud of Sonya after that, she purchased some orange robes from Bed Bath and Beyond and looked up all the information she could on Wikipedia.  She is now a somewhat productive member of society.

You know for some of us The Next Karate Kid was a flop, a film of scorn towards the legacy that Ralph Macchio helped create, but for some of us it can be a guide to inner peace.  A troubled girl fighting against the men in her life who hurt her and coming out on top. My sister is now an expert on Buddhism and can look up quotes and tenants off the web with the best of them. I am proud of my sister and all of her recent accomplishments for the Buddhist community and just wanted to say I love ya sis!