the patterns of love; For Daphne Beal, the fact that her younger sister was mentally handicapped wasn't a family tragedy; it was just a part of life.

Byline: Daphne Beal

In the hours before my sister Cecily's most recent visit to New York, I went into a small frenzy of stocking up on juice boxes and chocolate pudding, placing night-lights around the apartment, and scouring the listings sections for kid-friendly activities around town. Cecily isn't a kid, and she doesn't have any of her own, but, at the age of 33, despite being five-foot-ten and nearly 160 pounds, she is more like a child than an adult. Younger than I am by less than two years, she is legally blind and mentally retarded, a term I actually find easier to say than "special needs" or "developmentally disabled," both of which have always sounded euphemistic to me. My parents say-if they have to say anything-"mentally handicapped" or "brain damaged," the latter of which I like all right for getting straight to the point. But growing up, I heard in taunts, both inside and outside my head, "retarded," and being able to use it myself is something of a relief.

Reaching LaGuardia early, I explained at the ticket counter that I wanted to meet my handicapped sister at the gate, and with a sympathetic nod, the woman gave me a special pass to go through security. The last person off, Cecily was clutching the arm of a cheerful Midwest Express flight attendant and grinning in her oversize American-flag T-shirt, a Mickey Mouse money belt bulging at her waist.

"My little sister-who's bigger than me!" I teased, hugging her.

"Are you a Shrinky Dink?" she asked, prone as she is to childhood references.

With her short brown hair and her deeply tanned skin, Cecily couldn't look less like my light-haired brother, Jonathan, and me-we spend the hot months slathering on sunblock-and in the hustle of the New York airport, she looked more out of place than ever. She is a big-boned girl with uneven muscle tone, even with her newfound commitment to swimming and sit-ups. Her small shoulders and long, strong limbs are especially striking in contrast to her style of dress, which would suit an eight-year-old-lots of elastic waistbands, bright T-shirts, and sweatshirts proclaiming the name of a distant locale that she or a family member has visited recently: Orlando! San Francisco! Rome!

When she's genuinely happy, she beams, her smile taking over her face and her eyes crinkling up, but her teeth, even after years of braces and attempts at caps and bleaching, are dull and crooked, and her left front tooth is gray. As a child, she knocked her tooth twice at miniature golf courses, and once stepped off a diving board and landed on the concrete instead of the water. "She leads with her tooth," my brother and I used to say.