When I was 10, my sister and I would sit side by side, in front of our piano organ and play songs from our 1001 Lyric/Chords Song Book. We’d play and sing songs by Beatles, James Taylor, England Dan & John Ford Coley, APO Hiking Society, and more --- we knew almost every song in that chord book! But truth be told, our all-time favorite jam set is the Air Supply song list.
Ate is a true blue Air Supply fan. The first song she ever learned to sing is Two Less People in the World. She was 3. She grew up listening to Air Supply and so, sharing the same room and radio with her, I also learned to love the melodies of Here I Am, Come What May, Every Woman in the World, and Now and Forever. Our favorite song to sing and play in the piano organ is Keeping the Love Alive. Oh how we sang to the top of our lungs! She was Russell Hitchcock, I was Graham Russell.
I may be into an extremely different genre of music now but I can say that a big part of my love for music was influenced by my sister. She really loves music and music loves her. She won’t last a day without listening to the radio (her favorite radio station is 96.3 WRK). She loves to sing – my sister has good singing voice. When we clean our rooms, we’d sing with the radio or with her (what else?) Air Supply CD. When we’re bored and got nothing to do, we’d sing like Jennifer Sevilla and Sheryl Cruz in That’s Entertainment. When I cry, she’d sing Eternal Flame to me and I’d cry even harder because I’d be touched by the love and gentleness in her voice!
Indeed, my Ate is my sister, my mother, my teacher, my roommate, my music buddy, my idol, and my best friend…rolled into one. And just like in one Air Supply song, my sister is every woman in the world to me…
