Sisterhood

When we were children my sister, L, named her feet.  She called the left one Stinky and the right one John, or maybe I have that reversed.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter which one had the derogatory name because as an adult woman L treats both with equal care – bi-weekly pedis, hot stone massages, the whole girly thing.  Also, I’ve never seen evidence of a rebellious crisis: tattoos or any sneaking out of the shoe boxes at midnight to go party.  So, no long-term emotional scarring; it’s all good.

L has always marched to the beat of her own drum.  While I wore cute, frilly dresses with hand-smocking, nylon ankle socks with lace around the edges, and black patent-leather Mary Jane’s, L lived in neon sweaters over black and white striped leggings and red Reebok high-tops.  She was and continues to be her own person.

L was born in Plano, Texas, on Lincoln’s birthday the year I was three.  I distinctly remember my father leading my brother and me down the hospital corridor to the nursery window then picking us up, one under each arm.  He said, “She’s that one, the beautiful one with all the hair.”

He was right, she had a head full of black hair but beautiful? PUHLEEZZE??? Pretty babies were bald!  Of course, as I was positive this wrinkly pink thing sleeping so soundly behind the glass had come to take my place as the baby, she could’ve been the Gerber baby, and I wouldn’t have been impressed.

They brought her home during an ice storm, those for which Dallas is famous.  She was wrapped up like a burrito, layer upon layer.  Once they’d removed all the bundling she was itty, bitty or at least I thought so.  Years later I’d discover that she’d been a big baby, and stubborn to boot.  She’d refused to be born, wouldn’t even consent to labor.  A week after she was due, the OB/GYN tried to induce my mom, but NOTHING; my mother has an enormous zipper-like scar from the C-section.  A doctor might tell you that this refusal to be born had nothing to do with my sister’s personality; they would be wrong.  More about that later.

When L was a toddler, my mom decided to go back to work part-time.  Her background was in high school education.  So, she decided teaching preschool would be a relatively low-stress job and took a position at my brother’s school.   I do realize most people would argue that being a contestant on a Gordon Ramsey kitchen competition would be less stressful than controlling a classroom full of 3 year-olds, but that’s not the point.  So, please continue reading.

In anticipation of her new job, my mother made a pilgrimage to the teacher supply store (aka Toyland) and came home with a veritable bonanza of goodies.  The one that immediately caught my eye was her teeny-weeny American flag – maybe it was a foreshadowing of my Air Force career.  Mom’s mistake was that she didn’t immediately put it out of my reach.

Mom thought it was just a flag, but I knew it was, oh, so much more.  I knew it to be a mighty fine way to make my sister march.  I grabbed the flag while my mother wasn’t looking – do they learn nothing ? –  and found my sister.

“March! March!” I ordered, walking behind her as I pushed the pointed end of the flag’s stick at her diaper.  On the third or fourth thrust, the stick punched through the plastic diaper.  Huh…Well, now we had a problem because that diaper, uhm, well, it was not exactly empty.  Well, long story short, my mother being a pragmatic woman, cleaned the flag and used it in the classroom.  I’m sure I was punished, probably looked at cross-eyed which as a child could make me cry, and I wouldn’t recommend trying it now.  That was the second to last time my sister ever did what I told her.  She was not quite two.

While my sister is as different from me as gum is from glitter, there are things that we share that only sisters could: L drove me to the hospital for my hysterectomy when I was 25 and was a complete wreck.  Then she made the pathetically excruciating phone call to my estranged husband begging him to come to the hospital while I  literally lay dying after that surgery had gone so horribly wrong ; I didn’t die (Thank you, God.), and he wouldn’t come (charming, I know), but she called him because I had asked.  I can’t even imagine how awful that phone call had been to make, but she did it for me.  When her first real boyfriend crushed her heart, I listened to her cry in her room until I couldn’t stand it anymore; I felt like my heart was breaking, too.  At almost 1 am I grabbed my keys and then her, and we drove the back roads of Shenandoah County until the sun came up.  When my grandfather died, we sat next to each other at the very weird funeral and held hands to keep each other from laughing – you would’ve had to have been there, and also probably be our sister to understand how surrealistically funny it was.

I don’t understand my sister even half the time, but I admire her.  She’s all of 5’2″ tall, weighs maybe 110 lbs.  Despite her small stature, when she finished college she worked as a bouncer at a bar/grill frequented by those enormous UVA football players – those same boys who terrify me, have always terrified me which might somehow explain my choices in husbands – something to ponder later. But she’s a study in dichotomies, because her other job, and the one she has maneuvered into a true career, specialized in the marketing and managing of high-end cosmetics, jewelry, and better women’s wear – yes, she of the neon sweaters and black and white stripe leggings.   Hmmmh…bouncer in a bar and make-up connoisseur…leather and lace?  I’m confused too.

Being so very different we do not always get along.  In fact, being Southern women, we have some very chilly stand offs.  We know how NOT to fight in amazingly impressive ways.  In fact, can not fight with the very best of them.  But, and pay attention please, occasionally we also say some very hurtful things, and those tongue (s)lashings can take a while to heal.  She’s better at forgetting the painful verbal cuts than I or at least acting as if she has.  It takes me a bit (lot) longer – think months.  I don’t like this about myself.

Why is it that the people I care about the most can hurt me the most?  That’s really rhetorical;  I didn’t have another way to lead into this paragraph.  I get it that they can push my buttons because they know the buttons best.  I also get it that I’m protecting my heart in holding onto those hurts, in not allowing them in again so quickly.  In fact, if they weren’t my family (or close friends) I might not let them within shooting distance again – shotgun shooting distance , and I know these things (ranges of shotguns) because I am a Southern woman. But how Christian is this?

We’re told repeatedly to forgive and forget, turn the other cheek, that we should make every effort to get along.   But, honestly, aren’t there some people whom we just do not understand and maybe with whom we will just not get along?  God created us as individuals with individual temperaments, and He loves us as we are.  Remembering that He loves them as they are and as much as He loves me, too, is sometimes difficult for me, but it’s true.  Sometimes I think my life would be sooooo much easier if everyone thought just as I do and responded to things just as I do, but it would be sooooo awfully boring.

I know that God wants me in constant contact with people whom I do not understand to force me to change and grow.  He’s peppered my life with them, but it must be they’re white pepper because those individuals who are forcing the change don’t darken my life at all.   You see, as life happens, my response is either to soften or to harden.  It’s my choice.

As I change and grow and (hopefully) soften, I also choose to remain in the relationships that God chose for me – He’s a lot smarter than I.  He gave me my family as a gift – even if at times I wonder if he meant it as a gag.  No matter how frosty our non-fights might get, I know that my sister is still my sister and she will thaw or I will, and in the end all that matters is that when one of us is old and can’t walk anymore the other will happily push the wheel chair.