lasting impressions

So you know how at any given age, you have the same impressions of your older relatives (cousins, sisters) even as you grow older, and even as they are obviously growing older and wiser. To put it a more articulate way, you see the same given elements of their personalities from the eyes of your barely cognizant 5-year-old self to those of your wiser 21-year-old self. For example, Terry and Linda, at whatever age, were always (and still are) the wry-humored cousins who laugh at my dorky tendencies, who were always the calm observers of my fits of temper, and who were always much more practical people in general. And to a certain extent, you've also always shared similar pragmatism, sarcastic humor, and a collectedness that I assume must come from mom's side of the family.

Anyway, so one of the few things I do remember from life at 3 or 4 years old: we were in the apartment, and mom was cooking, you were entertaining yourself with something, and I was playing with legos on the floor. I was running a fever and was whining (as per usual) about not feeling well, slumped rather lifelessly over my legos. I was complaining repeatedly in my poor Cantonese, "It hurts, it hurts." And at some point, you got fed up with the whining and asked, "What hurts?" And I said, in pouting fashion, "All of my body hurts." And you, with a smug sarcastic look on your face, passed on the information half-laughingly to mom: "She says 'all of her body' hurts." I recognized at this early age your sarcastic, no-nonsense tendencies even in the dire plight of body-racking fever, and whether you were 11 years old or 28.