Sisters are Forever

 

I have two brothers and two sisters. Last week I went on a vacation with all of them and our kids. I. Altogether there were fifteen of us. Some of us brought partners, a few of us didn’t. We stayed in an enormous house by a magical lake. We ate meals together, made s’mores at night by the big fire pit in the backyard, took walks, played games, and simply basked in the presence of each other.

I was the first to arrive at the lake house and chose the most modest bedroom — the only one with a queen-sized bed instead of a king. My partner had been unable to join this trip so I thought it made sense for me to take the smaller bed. It was a lovely, quaint room with floral pastel linens, an antique dresser, and on the nightstand a tiny framed needlepoint that said, “Sisters are forever.”

My brothers are over a decade younger than my sisters and me and we don't have the same mother so our upbringings were starkly different. My sisters and brothers love each other and we never use the terms “half-brother” or “half-sister.” The very thought of splitting the love we feel that way is offensive and unnatural. 

But my sisters and I have a unique bond beyond what we have with our brothers. Our relationship is complicated and intense. We are close and far at the same time. None of us lives in the same city and we mainly see each other at whole-family gatherings. I would love to have more trips with just the three of us but the complexities of our sisterhood have precluded that. For now.

I have a very close relationship with my mother’s sister, an aunt who lives in the same part of the country as me. Sometimes I feel like my soul was dropped into the wrong place when it was hatched. Instead of going to my aunt, it made its way into my mother’s womb, a place where I never felt I quite belonged. I wasn’t easygoing, playful, and likable like my sisters. I was nervous and uptight, worried from the age of three. 

In our chaotic house growing up my sisters and I were each other’s allies. But our allegiance was complicated because none of us could really tame the wild sea we were thrashing around in. The best we could do was hook our tiny hands around each other’s wrists to keep a better grip across the life raft as we rocked with the waves of the wild sea. 

When we grew up and were able to leave home, my sisters and I all ran in different directions, subconsciously grateful to be free of the traumatic bond that held us together for so many years. 

Despite our distance, we have a deep love for one another and have always prioritized our kids having relationships with their aunts and uncles, no matter what is happening with any of us. 

In our family, there are six nephews and one niece — my daughter. My daughter doesn’t seem to mind being the only girl. She’s an only child and used to being in the role of “only.”

On the final night of our weeklong vacation, my two sisters and I decided to take an after-dinner walk. My daughter, now seventeen, said she wanted to join us. I was surprised that she’d want to walk along the country roads with me and my sisters instead of hanging with her cousins but welcomed her wholeheartedly.

The four of us started our walk together, a slow meandering up the gravel road. Soon after, my daughter and my twin sister splintered off ahead and I hung behind to talk to my younger sister. After about forty minutes the configuration changed and my younger sister and daughter began walking together behind my twin and me.

I don’t know what my sisters and my daughter talked about. Maybe my sisters shared family secrets, advice about college, stories about our childhood. As I witnessed them walking together I felt happy for the time they were sharing, grateful that my daughter has her aunts.

As the mother of a seventeen-year-old, I am in a constant state of wanting to connect and know my daughter a little bit better; I long to understand her and for her to understand me. Normally I would have sidled up to her and tried to engage, to take advantage of this time away to bond with her.

But on that hour-and-a-half walk, I never took a turn walking with my daughter. And I didn’t regret it. I didn’t even really think about it. Somehow seeing my daughter connect with my sisters was more than enough for me. It was almost like I was connecting by proxy.

As soon as I got home from my trip I wrote my sisters a text, “Let’s get together in for Labor Day,” I wrote. My twin wrote back, “That’s like… tomorrow,” indicating that the logistics of this kind of trip would be impossible to pull off with our geographic diversity, jobs, and parenting responsibilities. 

I felt that familiar distance — the one I’ve gotten used to, of being far away until the next time we gather in person. But the saying on that needlepoint is true. Even with the disappointment I feel right now being so far away from them, I know in my heart that sisters are forever. I can’t wait to see them again.