My Sister the Buddha

When my sister graduated from College (with honors), she made the decision to go to medical school.  We were all very excited for her although the thought of coming up with the money for her tuition was a bit daunting.

So off my sister went to learn how to wield the scalpel, analyze the anus and operate the machines that go “beep”.  Her medical school of choice for the first 2 years was in the sunny Caribbean, 365 days of sun and nakedness.  The 2^nd half of her schooling was in the land of people with bad teeth – The United Kingdom.

What we didn’t realize was that as my sister was studying medicine, she was also studying Buddhism, big time.  We knew she was dabbling in the Buddha Buddha stuff but we had no idea about what was about to happen.

When her 4^th year of medical school was finished and it came time for the graduation ceremonies, we all flew to New York City to watch my sister receive her diploma at Radio City Music Hall.  The pride we all had for my sister was huge.  We set a dinner at a very fancy restaurant a few hours before the graduation ceremony so that we all could celebrate as a family.  Everybody came with gifts and heartfelt speeches for my sister.  We were going to properly send her off into the world of medicine.

Everybody but my sister arrived at the restaurant, she was late as usual.  The excitement was palatable.  People were speculating on what area of medicine my sister would practice.  I of course placed my money on Proctology, since there were so many assholes in our family, she’d make millions.  Then my sister arrived.

She was as radiant and beautiful as always but there was something that nobody expected.  My sister had a shaved head and was wearing all orange, dark orange.  My first thought was that she picked up some new strange fashion in the UK; they’re weird like that.  I could tell that everybody was trying to figure out why this young lady with beautiful long blond hair had shaved it off and why the hell she was dressed so badly.   

My sister greeted everybody, sat down and told us she had something important to tell us.  I figured that she was going to finally admit that she was going to be a Proctologist, boy was I wrong.  She proceeded to say in a very calm voice that she’d made a life changing decision.  My sister, my dear sister, my dear misguided sister, after 4 years of medical school and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition had become an ordained Buddhist Nun and was going to spend the rest of her life following the Buddhist teachings.

Believe it or not, I sat there thinking, “cool, a Buddhist Nun Doctor – Proctologist”!  But again, boy was I wrong.  My sister went on to inform us that she’d accept her medical degree diploma tonight at Radio City Music Hall but she really wanted to make a difference to humanity so she was not going to practice medicine, she was going to travel from temple to temple refurbishing Buddhist deity statues while spreading the word of the big jolly guy – Buddha himself.

This is one of those times that I wish was being recorded, it would have gone viral 10x over on YouTube.  My mothers’ head dropped, I spit Coca-Cola out my nose and my sisters’ father turned so red, I thought he would have a stroke right there at the table.

I don’t think I need to explain more about the night, you can just imagine.  But in all fairness to my sister, years later, she is still traveling all around the world with the Buddha Buddha’s doing whatever Buddha’s do and she’s as happy as a Buddha can be.

The End