Cute Cousins Cavorting
Every family has their stories. Mine has many. One of them reads a bit like a soap-opera-ish, modern-day, saga. I once had two sisters I played with every few weekends. And then because of family circumstances and emotions and relationships, I only had one sister who I played with, fought with, and grew up with.
My half-sister was adopted by her step-father and we didn't see her again until she graduated from high school and we were invited to her ceremony. We tentatively tried to patch a long-stagnant relationship. It didn't go so well. We'd lived different lives and were different people raised in very different families. We were young women feeling our ways in the world and discovering who we were and what was acceptable. We drifted apart.
We each married. I had three children. And I think it was good 'ol Facebook that aided the most recent reconnection. To be bluntly honest, I was hesitant. I remembered the college-aged sister who was so different from me; I couldn't see us being good friends. We'll never be like blood relatives because I believe you have to be raised together for years to reach that level of understanding. But slowly over the past couple years, my half-sister and I have achieved a relationship that I feel blessed to have. We now call each other sister. And refer to each other as Auntie and our husbands as Uncle in front of our children.
While our relationship burgeoned, my sister became pregnant and she and her husband are now the proud parents of a beautiful, highly intelligent (a lot like my Max :) ), 18-month-old daughter - E.
This Memorial Day weekend, my sister was able to take a vacation day on Sunday (she is a nurse whose typical shift is every weekend) and she invited our family to make the hour long trek to their house to have a grilled lunch together. It was a beautiful (though nerve wracking for me since I worried that my boisterous Snippets were going to crush poor E) thing to watch these cousins cavort in the wading pool, leap through the sprinkler, play in the playhouse, and slip down the slide together.
My half-sister was adopted by her step-father and we didn't see her again until she graduated from high school and we were invited to her ceremony. We tentatively tried to patch a long-stagnant relationship. It didn't go so well. We'd lived different lives and were different people raised in very different families. We were young women feeling our ways in the world and discovering who we were and what was acceptable. We drifted apart.
We each married. I had three children. And I think it was good 'ol Facebook that aided the most recent reconnection. To be bluntly honest, I was hesitant. I remembered the college-aged sister who was so different from me; I couldn't see us being good friends. We'll never be like blood relatives because I believe you have to be raised together for years to reach that level of understanding. But slowly over the past couple years, my half-sister and I have achieved a relationship that I feel blessed to have. We now call each other sister. And refer to each other as Auntie and our husbands as Uncle in front of our children.
While our relationship burgeoned, my sister became pregnant and she and her husband are now the proud parents of a beautiful, highly intelligent (a lot like my Max :) ), 18-month-old daughter - E.
This Memorial Day weekend, my sister was able to take a vacation day on Sunday (she is a nurse whose typical shift is every weekend) and she invited our family to make the hour long trek to their house to have a grilled lunch together. It was a beautiful (though nerve wracking for me since I worried that my boisterous Snippets were going to crush poor E) thing to watch these cousins cavort in the wading pool, leap through the sprinkler, play in the playhouse, and slip down the slide together.
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| Scooter, one of two of my sister's dogs |
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| My sister's husband "Uncle Tim", manning the grill |
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