This past month, I have spent time with my two sisters and my sister-in-law (wife of my brother who died a few years ago) and marvel at how important they are to me. We don’t see each other often, making these times ever more important.
We have a unique and special connection. We share a history. Of course, we each have our own as well as our common memories, experiences, and perspectives. After all of these years we still learn things from one another about our parents, our grandparents and extended family, and ourselves: all of which can shed more light on who we are today.
My sister, Thersa and her husband, Norb, had just returned from a trip to our mother’s birthplace, Passau, Germany to connect with her childhood and part of our ancestral past. My sister, Mary, and husband, Bill were married there years ago accompanied by our mother who was going back for the first time since she emigrated at the age of seventeen.
The best part of being together, however, is that we enjoy one another as the women we have become and care about what is happening today with us and our families.
And, it is just plain fun to see and value how different we are in our talents and interests, vocations, avocations, and choice of husbands. Between the four of us, we have ten sons and seven daughters and a growing number of grandchildren each of whom is their own unique self.
My husband and I watched the mo who vie, “Pride and Prejudice,” last night,( five sisters,) which reminded me of “Little Women,” (four sisters.) We are three birth sisters and one sister by marriage. What would we look like on the big screen? Boring probably. Maybe not. We don’t know all of one another’s secrets. We don’t need to. We are content to accept whatever is or has been and take one another for granted. The older we get, the more important it seems to just be connected.
I celebrate my siblings and I want to pass that celebration of siblings on to future generations.