What Sisterhood Means to Me

I started this blog entry before my sister's birthday, which was December 7th, but never finished it for a lot of reasons....so here goes.

My sister Shari was the family's first-born.  She was also the first grandchild for our Armstrong grandparents.  (The Covill grandparents both died before Shari was old enough to know them.)  Then came Barbara, the sister that tragically died when Shari was 4 or 5.  Then came me right after Barbara.  None of us will ever know if/how that affected our relationship. 

My sister was my leader.  She took me to experiences I probably shouldn't have had because she was the brave one and I was the follower.  As she grew and changed, I grew and changed with her...but not always in the same way.   I can remember several times when she got sideways with Mom over an issue or two, and I told myself that, when I got to be her age, I wasn't going to do that.  (Wanting a bra is the one that sticks in my mind the most.)   And since I was the Goody-Two-Shoes, there were a couple of times when she got in some major trouble because I tattled on her.  In retrospect, I felt bad about that, but not at the time. Oh well!

Truth be known, I admired my sister.  She was pretty.  She had lots of boyfriends and a nice figure.  I wanted to look just like her!  It just never happened....and so it was.  In our stages of development, she was beyond me and I couldn't be what she was.  I think there was an unspoken competition that neither of us ever recognized back then...and now no longer matters!

Except for one remaining aunt, Shari and I are all that is left of our immediate family.  If I read our relationship correctly, we both feel like the sole inhabitants of a very small island.  No one else knows what we endured...what we learned...as kids.  No one else gets what we are made of, and wouldn't even if we tried to explain it.  We aren't keeping it secret.  It's just that the younger generation doesn't care so much, as if it didn't apply to them (although there will come a time when they figure it out for themselves, as Shari and I did). 

My sister lives in central Illinois.  I live in central Indiana.  Still, we are in email contact almost daily.  From that, I know that I can tell her anything and she will not judge me.  I hope she also understands that I am here to listen to her, even though I'm not there every day to prop her up in her day-to-day issues with her husband with dementia.  As kids, we fought endlessly.  As senior citizens, we are happy to have each other.  Somewhere in between, we grew up and life happened.  I am thankful for that.

And I am thankful that my sister is still in my life.  I love her to pieces.  Guess there isn't much more to say about that!