Sisters

I hung with my sister not long ago when we went together to her high school reunion. She graduated the year before me, so I knew many of the people from her class and considered them friends. The experience was surreal on a number of levels. First I realized I hadn’t “hung out” with my sister in many years, possibly decades, and secondly we would be both spending the night at our parent’s house, something we hadn’t done together since I think we both lived there almost thirty years ago. What was so sad to me was seeing my sister at the reunion; she could have been any number of people. She looked familiar, I think I remember a party or two we both went to, and it was good to see her again and catch up on all the good times we had back then.
Being only thirteen months apart, we were very close growing up, but then something happened during the high school years and we drifted, slowly like waves at sea. Among the flotsam and jetsam of time, we drifted in the same direction; we got married around the same time, had kids around the same time, but even that hasn’t brought us back to shore. Our personalities are so different, that without the shared childhood, I probably wouldn’t know her at all. Does being born in the same place and the same time guarantee closeness? I really thought it might, but at the reunion, as I caught up with people I hadn’t seen in years (including big sis) I guess the answer became no.
What can we do short of moving? Schedule weekly phone calls? Monthly visits? Force her to post more updates on Facebook or comment on mine? Your guess is as good as mine.
Do this: Relationships take work, even one’s we think can just drift along. Make an effort before they float away.
These are some pretty amazing lyrics from Ben Lee’s song 2 Sisters.
“Two sisters had so much in common
Now they don’t know each other at all
You thought that they’d grow closer with age
You were mistaken, they’ll go to their graves apart
Not regretting what they didn’t do
Never missing the sister that they never knew

Maybe the friendly sibling myth is a scam
I don’t know any siblings that walk around holding hands
Maybe we all expect too much of them
Not only to be sisters but also to be friends

Maybe two sisters need to fight scream and weep
Maybe if two sisters don’t fight
Then two sisters will never speak
Keep your theories and parent psychology
It doesn’t hold with me”

A frame with two separate photos in it
Is the closest that my two sisters have been