BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Marie Frank is a little girl who loves her big brother.

Like little sisters everywhere, sometimes she loves him because of, and sometimes she loves him in spite of. But for as long as she can remember, she has always looked up to Doug.

For most of her eight years, Marie's support for Doug, who has cerebral palsy, went unnoticed by the world. Nobody but Mom and Dad were there to see how Marie would turn coloring pictures into a team activity, with Marie being the hands that held the crayon and Doug being the idea man for the scene.

Marie was sure to sneak in the irreverent humor that always made Doug laugh: a silly face or a scribbled ''Idiot'' coming out of the mouth of a subject.

Marie likes to hear Doug laugh. Sometimes the Monfort Heights girl can understand his limited speech when no one else can. Perhaps it is because she listens to him with her heart.

When she was 3 and in the bathtub with her brother, she was the first to understand why Doug couldn't wash his own hair. With limited dexterity, he couldn't reach his hands up to his head.

So she filled his palms with shampoo and offered her own wet head as an experiment. But Doug's fingers became hopelessly tangled in her hair and, in trying to free them, he nearly ripped her hair from her scalp.

''It's OK, Mom,'' she said without a tear. ''He was trying.''

Never gives up hope

''I'm the proudest that he's trying to walk and talk, and he's trying real hard,'' she says now. She pauses. ''I'm the saddest that he can't walk and talk.''

But Marie never gives up hope he will.

Last month, she earned statewide honors in a PTA writing contest. Her subject was Doug. Her composition is titled ''It Could Happen.''

"My brother Doug is 5 years older than me. He cannot walk well because he has Cerebral Palsy. He uses a Dynavox to talk and I love him very much. He needs a walker to walk.

"A miracle could happen that he could walk and talk someday by himself. I pray about it at churuch on Sunday. So does Doug. And here's how it would happen.

"Maybe on his brithday he will be able to begin by crawling. I could crawl with him. He rolls to where he wants to go in the house now. I wish that things would be easier for him.

"Maybe he could run and play baseball like he wants to. Maybe he could run to first base without needing any help. Instead of having a Buddy (who throws the ball for him, and helps him wheel around the bases), he/she could be his friend to talk about the game. He could play on the Cincinnati Reds team and I could go to all his games. I could sit where the baseball players sit.

"I would cheer for him and he might get a home run! It could happen!"

Going through it together

Marie's mother, Pam Frank, says her daughter does sometimes dream about an out-of-the-blue miracle that would change Doug's life forever. But mostly she understands that people with cerebral palsy usually get the slow, hard kind - miracles they help earn themselves.

Meanwhile, the children celebrate what they've already been given. That Doug was able to say ''vanilla'' on his 13th birthday last week. That Marie scored six goals against the second-place soccer team.

And most of all, that they get to go through life together.

For Doug is lucky to have Marie, and Marie is lucky to have Doug. She enters into his world, and his mind and soul, even when he does not have the words to invite her. And Doug's gift is his own joyful, courageous presence in Marie's world - this brother who mischievously hides disliked food in his wheelchair, and cheers his little sister on at soccer games.

It's true that a miracle could happen in Doug's and Marie's lives.

And it's true, of course, that one already has.

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

RAMSEY ARCHIVE