Sisters

I started out with a brother.

But families visited on special occasions with SISTERS...

The years passed and there were more--brothers.

 I had to wonder--
What would it be like to play
with a sister? 

Would we be building tree
houses, peeling out with our
bikes in the farmyard, sliding
down the roof of the barn into
a snowbank?

Or, would we be sitting on
the floor with paper dolls,
placing miniature furniture
in a dollhouse with 
conversations of, 
"I'll be the Mom; 
you be the Dad."

****

Recently, I attended a funeral of a friend's mother.  My friend, Donna, and I had been best friends since second grade and remained so all the way through high school.  Pictures of Donna's family life folded one into another on a large screen in front of the church while we waited for the service to begin.  I watched as bits and pieces of their life history flashed before me.... and wanted to find a dark room and weep. Although our family circumstances were different, we shared a history.  She had been my sister--my blood sister...

 


Pricking our fingers with an alcohol sterilized sewing needle from her mother's sewing kit, we watched as the blood blossomed.  Pressing our wounded fingers together, we became blood sisters and thought we would be forever close.

However, for years we lost touch. . .

   I made new friends--in a sense, "sisters"--Margo, my college roommate.

We graduated and lost touch until the 80's.

 

Soon, I found my knight in shining armor, married,

and resolved the issue of sisters

for my own children.

I gave them sisters....

With their own stories to tell . . .

*****

The years passed--more quickly than I ever imagined they could.

My brothers remembered stories I did not.

They had worked the farm together while their sister, I,  was in the house with laundry, dishes, meal preparation, and cleaning.  (Okay, it wasn't all work; Mom and I squeaked in our favorite soap opera every day.)

*****

Recently, on a Sunday morning, I sat behind three sisters in church--all gray-haired and home for their mother's 80th birthday.  Sitting shoulder to shoulder, they whispered one to another while waiting for the service to start, and I thought... 

I wished I would have had a sister

The Berklands, 1950 picture, with my brother and me.

It took me back to the Berkland girls--  

Another baby girl was born after this picture.  

       Living on an Iowa farm, they had grown up grinding feed, plowing, milking cows, butchering chickens (there's a process here that involves killing, scalding, de-feathering, and cutting up), gathering eggs under mom hen's pecking, washing eggs, pulling weeds around the farm buildings, and more.  

I've been told there were times 

when there were more eggs 

on the basement wall 

than in the cartons.

If you've ever gathered eggs 

from a hen's nest--

on a hot summer day--

knowing you have yet to wash them--

you understand the eggs-on-the-wall thing.

I visited them in the summer during our growing-up years and worked harder at the Berklands than I did at home.  I always enjoyed it--so much companionship.  I attended college with one of them and we keep in touch through ocassional cards and emails to this day.  

Sisters?

The Berkland sisters today .. .Still enjoying being sisters.

Who are my sisters?

They are ladies from my past.

They are ladies from my present.

They are my very own daughters.

They are ladies in the future.

The church is everywhere represented as one.  It is one family, one body, one fold, one kingdom.  It is one because it is pervaded by one spirit. . .   

                                                                                                        Charles Hodge

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. 

Matthew 12:50--

Dear Lord, we are part of Your family.  

Help us to be loving and encouraging 

and reflect your glory.

Amen

Next week's blog:
    Old Wives' Tales