Yes, that was the subject line of an email that I just sent to my slightly older sister. I tell her about my recent adventures in dating and of my dedication to becoming a “spiritual warrior of compassion”. I sit here now imagining her rolling her eyes as I puke my thoughts into an email that she is the lucky recipient of. I snicker to myself as I wonder what my big sis’ really thinks (but would never say) of her wacked-out little sister. That thought gets my mind churning and I decide to share a little about what I think of her.
My sister Sherry has always been a pillar of strength, although she has a nasty-mean temper if I might add. As far as sisters go, we haven’t had the most ideal relationship full of mushy moments and thoughtful exchanges. We didn’t go shopping together and we never talked about boys. There is a lot crap out there about how sisters are (I’m picturing pink greeting cards with that awful cursive font) and I’m sure that there are some sisters out there that fit that profile completely or even slightly—but not us. It took a while for us to warm up to the idea that we are sisters and can share anything.
My sister is the stable one with a little picturesque home, two beautiful children and a husband. I am the one who is going on random dates, meditating, finding myself and allowing people all over the world into my random and confused thoughts by writing this blog. Yes, as you may have already discerned, we are slightly different.
And because of our differences, our relationship was somewhat strained for a long time.
My sister and I didn’t grow up in a home with two loving parents or any sense of security. From as young as seven or eight years old I can remember always wondering when our world was going to collapse and who—if any—of us four kids was going to make it out alive. There was no time for sisterly-love and it certainly wasn’t an environment that fostered any loving connections.
As a result of our situation we both had to learn to deal. Deal with instability, sadness and kissing good-bye to our childhood well before it was time. And with us being so different, we had vastly different approaches to dealing.
Always the more emotional one, I dealt by withdrawing, writing and crying in my closet. I reached out for comfort in words, songs and animals. I nurtured any creature that crossed my path, I guess, hoping to provide the comfort that I needed but lacked in my young life.
My sister dealt by becoming tough and when I say “tough” I mean, rock-hard-show-no-emotion tough. I feel like sometimes she walked around with a scowl on her face and spent a lot of time in complete silence, ignoring her sibling’s existence—or at least this is how it appeared. She found her comfort in reading romance novels, Disney movies and perhaps daydreaming of Prince Charming.
As I’ve grown up and contemplated how we all made it out alive and for the most part, unscathed. I have realized the incredible bravery that my sister possessed. My sister, although rock-hard and seemingly emotionless was not “ignoring” her siblings. She in fact did just the opposite. She sacrificed herself by dropping out of school and dropping right into the harsh working world—all to put food on the table for her siblings.
As a result of her dedication to her family, we were able to survive. She managed to work within the pretend world that my mother lived in while putting food on the table and clothes on our backs. She might not have kissed us goodnight or tucked us in but she provided the bed that we slept in and the roof that covered our heads. She did what needed to be done even though it meant the end of her youthful dreaming and in a lot of ways, the death of her fragile teenage world.
Having fairly recently gone through a major life change (picture a phoenix), I reached out to my sister and found her there. She allowed me many graceful moments of crying over the phone. She welcomed me and my pain into her life. This strong, silent and quick to anger woman became my sister in all those mushy ways that I didn’t know that she was capable of.
She sent me flowers on Valentines Day from my nieces and made me feel “needed” on my visits to her home in New York
No comments:
Post a Comment