About a month ago my good, old friend said to me, “We don’t have sisters, Jo Ann. We need people at different phases of life”! That was when I was in the middle of a battle royale with an infection that started in a failed root canalled tooth and spread to my face and neck. Having recently experienced her own battle with infection, she knew the dangerous situation I found myself in and was so kind and gracious and generous with her time and advice. And her line, “We don’t have sisters” has been ruminating in my brain ever since.
Usually when I’ve got a blog topic in the brain, I need to just get it all out and sort it through. But this one…? No, for some reason, it touched deep. And I didn’t quite know why.
So it first led me to think about my friendship with S who I quoted above. She is such an incredible soul who has been my friend since the 80s. We share memories of Quebec Trip and Wilson Phillips and her always stepping up to teach my little Girl Guides to dance! Her path led her to marriage and kids while I took the long way around, not getting married until later in life and not being able to have kids. So without really realizing it, we drifted. But always stayed at the periphery….always the same as it always was when we would see each other. Always love and mad respect. But not the day-to-day hang outs we had as kids and young adults.
So having her reach out when I was at my worst, was a little overwhelming for me. Kindness in all its forms makes me weepy and always has. And I’m not quite used to having that kindness shown to me so blatantly. It meant the world that she not only paid attention and saw me and recognized the trouble signs and reached out but I realized, upon reflection, that I may have been SO moved because she struck a nerve with the sister thing.
She’s right. I don’t have a sister. I have only one brother. She is an only child. But I have always felt like people in my circle are like my sisters. And this fall, I saw that S does too. And that wiped away a lot of pain and awkwardness I didn’t realize I had when it came to the “sister” talk.
You see, many years ago, another very good friend and I were talking and I was telling her about my cousin, let’s call her Drew. Drew was always my person. She is 4 years older than me and as an extremely shy and anxious child, I was forever fascinated by her. Blond, beautiful, bubbly, smart, funny…and always interested in me, even if I was sometimes a mute in her presence!! I’d still get dragged along. I remember the day she dragged me along to break up with a boyfriend. She boxed up everything he’d ever given her and made me ride shotgun with her to the store about 2kms down the road. She then proceeded to scream at him in front of everyone there and throw the items from the box, one by one, at him while he sat, shirtless, on the hood of his car drinking a beer. Yes, I know, it sounds like it’s straight out of a movie. And on that day, that’s exactly what it felt like. I was so enamoured of her and so thrilled that she had taken me under her wing.
When she moved to town for school, she and I would watch soap operas and talk for hours every day. She taught me everything. How to shave my legs. How to do my hair and make up. How to put together and outfit. How to be a teen…and later a young adult. She was my biggest cheerleader and my closest ally. Those formative years are so special…and Drew was my mentor, my friend…my sister. i stood in her wedding; would visit her at her inlaws so that I would be sure to get one on one time – where we would lay awake talking all night, giggling like school kids long after that was but a memory! When I went to grad school, she became my home away from home. She lived a couple of hours away from my school so I would go for weekends and spend time with her family and her friends. She’d make me meatloaf and mashed potatoes (my favourite) or Gramma’s famous home made tomato soup and we would simply do absolutely everything together. She was my sister, in MY opinion, in every sense of the word (other than sharing parents haha).
So when I was telling my very good friend about Drew, I was surprised that she said to me “I bet she doesn’t feel that way”. It stopped me in my tracks. That friend realized it sounded so awful, but upon prodding said that as someone who had 2 sisters, it’s very different to be close friends with a girl than it is to be a sister. Sisters just have a unique connection that can’t be replicated. I wasn’t mature enough at that time to realize that that was HER opinion and HER experience. I took it to heart and thought that even though *I* might think of someone like a sister, they probably didn’t really feel that way. That friend didn’t mean anything bad by that and she and I are still very close, for the record!!
Years later, Drew would prove that old friend right. One of the most painful things I have had to deal with is having the one person who has always been my go-to decide she can’t have me in her life. From my perspective I was collateral damage in a battle between Drew & her son and her sister & niece. From hers, I picked a side that wasn’t hers. Betrayal all around. To this day I mourn that relationship even though I finally understand it is unfixable. *I* can’t understand how a sisterly relationship comes to an end. That old friends words echoed in my brain…betcha she doesn’t feel that way. She couldn’t have. Because she walked away when I never would.
I would use use sisterly words, still, because *I* felt that way about many women in my life…but I stopped believing they felt that way back. I have a couple of cousins who I call my “Cousters”…cousins who are like sisters. I have Jody who is my best friend of 45 plus years. I have my Godsister Val. I have my Sisterwife Tanya. I have Kathy who I call my sister. I have Shannon who I refer to as my sister. I have my Sisters in law – one here, one in Germany, 3 in the DR and one in heaven. i have Allana who I call my person. I have my Cooke sisters. I have good friends who feel like sisters to me. But as much as *I* always think of them that way…this incredibly strong circle of women in my world…I truly thought that that was one sided.
But old friend S showing up when I was at my lowest? That disproved my one sided theory. And today, I was on tour with my parents and we stopped at Swiss Chalet for lunch. Tis the season for their festive specials…who doesn’t want the chocolates for dessert?! Another old friend from highschool, who I also share Quebec trip memories with (!) happened to be there with her family and popped by our table on her way out. Now, because of where she works, she is privy to the inside details of my chaos and the amount of stress I’m under trying to fix things. But it’s not like we’ve sat down and had a deep dark convo about it or anything. But today? When Mom, Dad and I went to leave? The waitress told us that that friend from high school had taken care of our bill!
That random act of kindness…after already being so kind to pop over and say hello. She didn’t have to do that…I hadnt’ even seen her! Let alone to pay for our meal!! I was so overwhelmed by that kindness that I was weepy!!
And then the more I thought about it, the more I thought about old friend S’s comment from last month. We don’t have sisters. We need a circle. And I suddenly felt this weight lift off me. I was NOT alone despite my world feeling very small. It’s NOT only me who thinks of close friends as my circle of sisters. It’s NOT one sided. It’s not going away because of the perception of wrong doing. It’s a circle that is tried and true and decades old…and I feel the energy flowing from one to the other. The kindness; the strength; the thoughtfulness. I am finally letting it all wash over me…and opening my heart and my soul to it all.
Sisterhood is not denied to me. Sisterhood is what gets me through the day; each and every day. Thank God for Sisters…even the estranged one who no longer thinks of me that way. I’m old school. I’ll always think of her that way. And especially today, thank God for S and thank God for the Christmas elf at Swiss Chalet – you are forever in my heart and I love you both!
And to wrap up, if you are in my world and in need of a sister, I am that person! You just call on me and you can be assured I’ll be there. Just like S. I’m your sister now!
Dandelion Wishes 