He melts my heart like a popsicle on the fourth of July!
Cute Aunt La-La invited us over to her house today for an end of summer bbq and swimming party. Sheri came down from Preston with Connor, Josslyn & Whitney. She picked up Nadalynn on her way along with her boyfriend Bridger - they went to homecoming together last night. Connor loved floating in the pool, but couldn't stay in for too long. Josslyn on the other hand would not get out. She stayed in for three hours straight. She only took a break to eat and then she was right back at it splashing away with the boys in the pool. Markus was so cute with her and every time she would hop out to get a new toy he would help her jump back in. Monet came over and brought her girls, Kailey and Aria. After the sun went down and everyone was shriveled from the water like a prune, we roasted marshmallows in the fire and made s'mores, laughing the night away. When I was a little girl I thought one of the happiest sounds I’d ever heard was my mother laughing with her sister. They’d stand around my Grandma Jo’s kitchen, washing the dishes and putting away the dinner leftovers, laughing so loudly they would scare me. My mother’s sister Carol—lived hundreds of miles from us, and she and my mother got together several times a year while my sisters and I skated. They colored each other’s hair, shared photos and gossip, reminisced about their childhoods, and cried together when Carol had her Lupus diagnosis. But mostly I remember their laughter and the way my mother’s eyes brightened when she was around Carol and her mother. My mother knew a secret then that I’ve only come to appreciate now that I’m a grown woman and a mother myself: having sisters is pretty much the best thing that can happen to a girl.
I am more fortunate than many in the sister department because I have five: Marilee, Lara, Monet, Sheri and Darlin. Each of us are two years apart, except for the five years between Sheri and Darlin, with one poor solitary brother between Monet and me. Of course, growing up I took my sisters for granted and even found them annoying at times. As the middle sis I did my share of babysitting and bossing and mandatory sharing and long suffering tolerating of pesky kid sisters who squabbled, teased, followed me around, and got into my stuff. Once while I was babysitting—and it seemed like I had to baby-sit ALL THE TIME while my parents callously left us to go to endless parties and balls (I’m sure I had to sweep the chimney as well)—I had to carry Darlin’s rocking chair inside from the front yard because she refused to take a break from playing to use the potty inside. But since the rocking chair was already occupied by Darlin and it didn’t occur to me to take her out, before carrying it inside, she, ahem, fell out and onto the floor. Another time I had to stay home and hold and rock baby Darlin, who couldn't find her Nuk (pacifier), for two hours straight while she plastered her little body to mine and cried nonstop. Sheri scratched and bit me on more than one occasion (completely unprovoked, I’m sure) and even read my diary; I got her back years later by telling on her when she was out with some boys from college, while she was only 15.
Suffice it to say, I didn’t always appreciate my sisters. But we had our moments, even back then. I always thought of Darlin as my first baby and lavished her with motherly attention; I secretly enjoyed toting her around everywhere, wrote down every cute thing she said, and couldn’t get enough of kissing her curly head. Sheri had a witty, dry sense of humor and amused me with her sass and feistiness, especially when she told off overbearing adults while I stood there tongue-tied and timid. Sheri and I shared a room with a double bed when I was almost ten and she was eight, and every night after lights out Sheri and I would tickle each others back and giggle and whisper secrets, long after we were supposed to be asleep. She was my companion during the summers when we explored the duck pond island, having bravely rowed across the pond in an inflatable raft and spent lazy afternoons at the nearby pool, sunning ourselves on warm cement and playing mermaids in the deep end.
These sisterly bonds have only become sweeter and deeper as we’ve grown into women. Sheri and I both wed within a year of each other and then lived within just miles of each other after we got married. We’ve gone bowling while eight months pregnant, nursed and potty trained together, and watched our children get baptized, and start high school. Though Darlin and Sheri live in another state, the six of us email and call each other; we share family news and fashion tips (my sister Lara even staged a much-needed hair intervention for yours truly); we trade recipes and funny stories and childhood memories. We’ve been bridesmaids at each other’s weddings and we’ve grieved together over their divorces. And, though we sometimes weep together over our struggles, most of the time we laugh until our stomachs hurt—just as my mother and her sister did all of those years. We are sisters in flesh and spirit, bonded in heart and soul, best friends forever.
