Becoming Necesssary
I met my sister for the first time when I was somewhere north of forty and she was a couple days shy of fourteen years older. We knew each other as children - there are plenty of Easter pictures to prove it - but back then I was just a tyke hugging a pink bunny and she was an awkward teen in gratuitously colored plaid bell-bottoms. Those weekends had to be trying for her. Time with her dad and his new much younger family couldn't have been much fun. Add in the drive to LA from Vegas and I know I'd have pitched a fit at sixteen.
Life went on. I grew up; my sister started a family and eventually got a PhD from UNLV. Our fourteen year age difference was a big deal through most of those years. After a Southwest road trip the Spring Break I turned eight, we saw each other just one time. I happened to be in Las Vegas for a tennis tournament my sophomore year of college and Pam, my then-brother-in-law, and toddler nephew (he recently turned thirty) came to watch. After that, nothing for twenty-plus years.
It wasn't on purpose. My life didn't take me to Las Vegas and hers didn't take her to Kansas or Michigan or Texas. Our dad stayed in San Diego and while we both visited fairly often, those visits never coincided. Until one weekend a few years back. My dad came to pick me up at the airport, like he always did, and I saw a woman I hardly recognized in the passenger's seat. Turned out to be my sister, Pam.
We passed a good couple days just chilling on the love seat in my dad's TV room, watching football and probably a bit of Fox News. On Sunday afternoon, I pondered out loud if it might be ok to have a drink. It wasn't quite "cocktail hour", a near-religious practice in my dad and step-mom's house in those days, but it was football Sunday and I was on vacation. I recall cringing a little as I waited for an answer. I needn't have worried. Pam popped up off the couch and announced that it seemed like a good time for a glass of wine. That was the moment I (re)discovered my sister.
That's not to say our relationship is based solely around drinking. Hardly. I can count on one hand (ok, maybe two hands) the number of drinks we've shared since that afternoon. It merely highlights a moment in time, a memory, when I knew. After saying the majority of my life that I had one sister and one half-sister, I stopped. From that day on, I began saying that I had two sisters. There was no need any longer to designate Pam as "half" a sister.
Truthfully, I have as much in common with her as I do my middle sister, the one with whom I share both my mother and my father, if not more. Kelly and I share a history, one forged from sleeping in the same room and going to the same schools (including college). We knew each other as children, though have little more than a cursory acquaintance as adults. Like with Pam, it's never been purposeful. We went our separate ways after college - Kelly to the University of Wisconsin for grad school then to Minneapolis after, and me... Well, I went wherever the wind (or pretty women) took me, which -- as yet -- has never been Wisconsin or Minnesota. We grew into adults who swapped occasional emails and text messages (mostly pictures of our dogs). We meet up once a year or so and enjoy our visits, but we've never been "close".
I suppose that sounds bad from the outside looking in. One should be close to siblings, if not geographically then emotionally. Yes and no. Kelly and I are both fiercely independent and lead vastly different lives. We don't need each other (That's one thing we actually do have in common - we don't need people in our lives) and we refuse to force a relationship that isn't necessary. At this point. Some day, though, it might be necessary. We might be necessary.
Like Pam and I discovered this summer. After than initial weekend, we exchanged a few emails and text messages - I asked her for sisterly academic advice several times - and we really did plan to get together again at some point. It just never materialized. Busy adult lives, that kind of thing. Then this summer our dad got sick. And we became necessary. We needed each other.
If there's a silver lining about my dad's aging, it's been getting to know my sister. In the past few months, we have spent more time together and learned more about each other than in the previous forty-eight years combined. We are as different as we are similar. She's a serious academic; I am merely an erstwhile amateur. She loves warmth and island vacations; I prefer the cold of Scandinavia. She is art and music; I am sports. We are liberal, open-minded, and introverted. And we love our dad.
One day in some distant or not-so-distant future, Kelly and I might find ourselves in a similar situation. Our mother is a few years younger than our dad, but aging is inevitable (Sorry, Mom, but it is). And while I hope it never happens, we may find ourselves necessary; we may find ourselves rationalizing (and I may find myself blogging) about that very same silver lining.
I suppose that's the sibling life. You meet, you part, you meet again. I wonder what will happen to Pam and me after our dad passes. Will we part again when we are no longer necessary? I hope, if anything, this time has given us a closeness that will endure the test of time, space, and our older adulthood. I suppose all that is up to us more than chance, if the past is to be a lesson. And I suppose it should be. It should all be for something, shouldn't it?
Life went on. I grew up; my sister started a family and eventually got a PhD from UNLV. Our fourteen year age difference was a big deal through most of those years. After a Southwest road trip the Spring Break I turned eight, we saw each other just one time. I happened to be in Las Vegas for a tennis tournament my sophomore year of college and Pam, my then-brother-in-law, and toddler nephew (he recently turned thirty) came to watch. After that, nothing for twenty-plus years.
It wasn't on purpose. My life didn't take me to Las Vegas and hers didn't take her to Kansas or Michigan or Texas. Our dad stayed in San Diego and while we both visited fairly often, those visits never coincided. Until one weekend a few years back. My dad came to pick me up at the airport, like he always did, and I saw a woman I hardly recognized in the passenger's seat. Turned out to be my sister, Pam.
We passed a good couple days just chilling on the love seat in my dad's TV room, watching football and probably a bit of Fox News. On Sunday afternoon, I pondered out loud if it might be ok to have a drink. It wasn't quite "cocktail hour", a near-religious practice in my dad and step-mom's house in those days, but it was football Sunday and I was on vacation. I recall cringing a little as I waited for an answer. I needn't have worried. Pam popped up off the couch and announced that it seemed like a good time for a glass of wine. That was the moment I (re)discovered my sister.
That's not to say our relationship is based solely around drinking. Hardly. I can count on one hand (ok, maybe two hands) the number of drinks we've shared since that afternoon. It merely highlights a moment in time, a memory, when I knew. After saying the majority of my life that I had one sister and one half-sister, I stopped. From that day on, I began saying that I had two sisters. There was no need any longer to designate Pam as "half" a sister.
Truthfully, I have as much in common with her as I do my middle sister, the one with whom I share both my mother and my father, if not more. Kelly and I share a history, one forged from sleeping in the same room and going to the same schools (including college). We knew each other as children, though have little more than a cursory acquaintance as adults. Like with Pam, it's never been purposeful. We went our separate ways after college - Kelly to the University of Wisconsin for grad school then to Minneapolis after, and me... Well, I went wherever the wind (or pretty women) took me, which -- as yet -- has never been Wisconsin or Minnesota. We grew into adults who swapped occasional emails and text messages (mostly pictures of our dogs). We meet up once a year or so and enjoy our visits, but we've never been "close".
I suppose that sounds bad from the outside looking in. One should be close to siblings, if not geographically then emotionally. Yes and no. Kelly and I are both fiercely independent and lead vastly different lives. We don't need each other (That's one thing we actually do have in common - we don't need people in our lives) and we refuse to force a relationship that isn't necessary. At this point. Some day, though, it might be necessary. We might be necessary.
Like Pam and I discovered this summer. After than initial weekend, we exchanged a few emails and text messages - I asked her for sisterly academic advice several times - and we really did plan to get together again at some point. It just never materialized. Busy adult lives, that kind of thing. Then this summer our dad got sick. And we became necessary. We needed each other.
If there's a silver lining about my dad's aging, it's been getting to know my sister. In the past few months, we have spent more time together and learned more about each other than in the previous forty-eight years combined. We are as different as we are similar. She's a serious academic; I am merely an erstwhile amateur. She loves warmth and island vacations; I prefer the cold of Scandinavia. She is art and music; I am sports. We are liberal, open-minded, and introverted. And we love our dad.
One day in some distant or not-so-distant future, Kelly and I might find ourselves in a similar situation. Our mother is a few years younger than our dad, but aging is inevitable (Sorry, Mom, but it is). And while I hope it never happens, we may find ourselves necessary; we may find ourselves rationalizing (and I may find myself blogging) about that very same silver lining.
I suppose that's the sibling life. You meet, you part, you meet again. I wonder what will happen to Pam and me after our dad passes. Will we part again when we are no longer necessary? I hope, if anything, this time has given us a closeness that will endure the test of time, space, and our older adulthood. I suppose all that is up to us more than chance, if the past is to be a lesson. And I suppose it should be. It should all be for something, shouldn't it?
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