Sister No More

At this stage, it isn't unusual to see your relatives die of old age. Everyone tells you "they are in a better place" and other platitudes well meant. No matter how old or young you are, you miss your dear ones who are no longer around. You miss them when they are gone as much as an amputated body part.The ghost limb remains. A sister, and I suppose, a brother, not that I had one, is a unique relationship. Men might go about wrestling and competing in sporty ways as brother boys but sisters tend to cling smilingly to each other. A sister as close as mine was in coming into life, was always there. She was the face I saw most during my days and the one who was with me, beside me for the next decades. We grew up together. We shared all of the fears and joys and struggles and achievements and failures and loves and likes. There is a bond in living together in sisterhood that is like none other. We have friends who come and go but sisterhood is much like being one person with two sides. There are no mysteries between sisters, no politenesses, no faking. You can't play mind games with someone from whom you are always an arm's length away. They know you as well as you know yourself. There are the usual sibling rivalries and spats but when they pass, you are both still there and needing and wanting to resolve what appears to separate you. Older sisters have the role of always being responsible to "take care" of their "little" sisters and younger sisters always resent that role. Younger sisters resent that their sibling came first and appears to "run" everything and be the achievers they don't perhaps in their eyes, come up to.  Older sisters envy their "little" sisters who are the darlings who are funny and cute while they must maintain their "educator" selves as examples to their younger siblings. My sister was not a year younger than I. We shared a room, we slept in the same big bed. We talked about and discussed things that only two females can. We shared life later, as we lived it. Our lives were closely entwined until we left puberty and became young women. Somehow, social and other events got in the way of being constantly close as each of us trod our own paths and made choices in our own ways. No one says you have to be alike in what you do and where you go and with whom you associate. But no one ever can break the bond that sisterhood has, no matter how life plays out. You know that your sister is always there when you need her. She knows it, too, no matter how far apart you are. You both know that you are sisters as long as life lasts. My sister's life ended rather suddenly not long ago and she slipped away as I watched the process day by day. We spoke of our life as sisters and about death and somehow it made what was to be, easier. She was still warm, even though she had left life when I kissed her good-bye, and thanked her for being my sister.