The first step to wisdom is to be sure one says and does what one believes.

A cat likes to hear you calling him. He sits in a bush a yard from your shoes - and listens.

A dog wakens your heart to joy and companionship.

We shared. Parents. Home. Pets. Celebrations. Catastrophes. Secrets. And the threads of our experience became so interwoven that we are linked. I can never be utterly lonely, knowing you share the planet.

You are asleep. Deep, deep asleep - and then the world caves in. The cat has leapt from the top window onto your stomach. He is saturated. He is hungry. He taps you into full wakefulness with a sodden paw "Could you open a can?"

Love is to understand, at last, the suffering of another.

A younger sister is someone to use as a guinea-pig in trying sledges and experimental go-carts. Someone to send on messages to Mum. But someone who needs you - who comes to you with bumped heads, grazed knees, tales of persecution. Someone who trusts you to defend her. Someone who thinks you know the answers to almost everything.