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Sunday, May 11th, 2008
Tribute To My Sisters

“Sis-ters, sis-ters -- there were never such devoted sisters...”
I just came back from the second Sisters Slumber Party with my two sisters, Pam and Patti. I never knew that we three fifty-something girls could have so much fun together!
Pam is the oldest sister, I am a year, a week and a day younger. I guess our parents figured out what birth control was because Patti came along a full 5 years later. Five years after that our dear, sweet brother, Mike, joined us -- but this particular blog is not about brothers.

Pam
As little girls, Pam and I were inseparable. She was the friendly, secure one and I was painfully shy. I relied on her tremendously and I don’t believe she ever let me down. Pam was the Bluebird, the Campfire Girl, the cheerleader with lots of friends. I was the loner, the tag along, the one buddy kind of kid. I think I began having my own friends (make that friend) other than my sister, when I was 8 or 9. Only one friend at a time. We moved every two years when we were growing up and it took me that long to begin to feel somewhat comfortable with a group of people -- then we moved. Seemed that Pam made friends immediately and she would always include me. Maybe our mother made her do it, I don’t know, but I always felt like she wanted me included. Too bad I didn’t extend that kindness to Patti, when she began to tag along with me!

In our teens, Pam and I began to grow apart. I was moody and jealous, as all the neighborhood boys clamored around Pam and ignored me. Lord knows why the boys weren’t interested in this tall, gangly, sullen girl instead of the petite, bubbly Pam. Both of my sisters are petite - 5’3”. I am almost 5’8” and was already 5’6” at 12 years old. I felt I looked like an ape, with my arms almost touching the ground. Perhaps I had a little self-esteem problem?

Pam used to roll her eyes and exclaim how immature I was when my ONE friend, Karen, and I would sit at the kitchen table and scream our lungs out, then fall over laughing. I mean, we were hysterical, couldn’t she see that?

Pam’s seriousness began to grow when she finished high school and started her job. I guess she was 18 years old and 8 months out of high school when our family moved from Detroit, Michigan down to Winston-Salem, NC. The social butterfly left all her college bound friends behind and went to work with our dad at a car dealership, where her friends were several older women from a very different background from which she had been raised. I, a 17 year old, liberal-minded know it all, felt we had little in common.

Patti

When Patti was a baby, Pam and I thought she was OUR baby -- adored her, fought over her, thought she was precious -- but once she began to talk and embarrass me, she became the bane of my existence. Like Pam, Patti was petite, talkative and friendly. She was also absolutely fearless, had a deep sense of curiosity and wandered at will. She would walk up to complete strangers and start up conversations, as if she had never gotten the “talking to strangers” speech. At age 5 or 6, she used to go across the street (which she wasn’t supposed to do) and visit these nice folks who had no kids. One particular time I was with her and she was babbling away, entertaining everyone, when she (an uninvited guest in someone else’s house) shamelessly ASKED for a cookie! Oh-my-god -- I was mortified. I pretty much carried that opinion of her until she was into her teens, at which time I just mostly ignored her.

I find that the difference in our ages and my complete oblivion to anything other than my own life kept me from getting to know my younger sister until I was in my early twenties and married. Patti was in her first two years of college, (Pam had married and moved to Ohio) and I finally began to see her as someone other than my little sister and discovered, much to my amazement, that I liked her! We seemed to share our mother’s completely irreverent sense of humor and laughed at things at all the inappropriate times. I even discovered a familiar pattern I had shared with my friend in earlier years -- Patti, Bob (husband) and I riding in a car somewhere, screaming at the top of our lungs and then breaking into uncontrollable laughter. I am sure, if Pam had been in the car with us at that time, she would have asked us to stop and let her out!

Separation
Both of my sisters married and moved several states away from North Carolina. Neither one of them had an easy go of it. Where as, I had married my soulmate, they both ended up in marriages that left much to be desired.

I spent many hours on the phone with both of them, at different times, listening, advising as best as I knew how, as they and their families lived their lives away from the family support system. Pam continued her serious demeanor, trying her best to hold things together. Patti used humor to help dull her pain. Do not misunderstand, I cried on their shoulders too, but I seemed to have the “easy life” with a man who loved and supported me and was a terrific father. For them -- not so much.

We gathered together with the whole family every year or two and managed to visit each other as often as we could. Long distance, we shared our stories with concern and laughter, sometimes understanding the other, sometimes not, but trying to be good sisters.

Rejoining, Step One
Just three months after Pam gave birth to her second son, she made the unbelievably difficult decision to leave her husband and move back to North Carolina. She chose to move back because her family would be there for her, but she also left behind a very good job and lots of good friends. What followed were 10 or so years of incredible struggle as a single mom with the youngest of her sons also dealing with A.D.D. and other learning disabilities. I continue to marvel at how this little woman held all her shit together through very hard times. Full time job, two boys, shoe string budget, health problems, alone, but with a circle of family support. A powerful advocate for her sons, she was ALWAYS trying to show her positive side, even when we KNEW that was not what she was feeling inside. Bob has said many times that Pam amazes him. She is my hero.

Pam has been married to a great guy for 15 years, still had many struggles with health and certainly fought through hard situations with her kids (as we all do!), but she finally retired from her assistant teaching job, she and Scot bought a home with land in the Walnut Cove area, and she is exploring her creative side, making baskets, teaching others to make baskets, gardening, cooking ... they’re hoping to start an alpaca farm ... and she laughs a lot more.

Rejoining, Final Step

Patti left college after her sophomore year to marry hubby and quickly discovered that life with him was not going to be easy, but with her first child coming along within a few years after the marriage, she was determined to hang in there. Two more children followed in very short succession. Unfortunately, so did hubby’s job losses and financial messes. One, after another, after another. This mother of three little kids began taking on part-time jobs -- delivering papers, selling Mary Kaye cosmetics, Avon... whatever she needed to do to get bills paid. They never lived in one place more than a year at a time. Financial disaster followed them as hubby moved from job to job, state to state -- unhealthy things to unhealthy things. He did not deserve it, but Patti stood by him, believing in something I could not see. She suffered verbal and other abuse and developed an eating disorder but still could have received the “best mother” award, putting her entire focus on her children. After more than twenty years, when her youngest child was in high school, and right before our mother died, she finally made the break and filed for divorce.

Seven years after divorcing that man, with her adult children safely moving forward in their own lives, Patti made the decision to do what she has wanted to do since a few months into her marriage -- move back home to North Carolina. On a hope and a prayer, and with the urging of the love of her life, Jim, she quit her job, put her house on the market and set forth to move down here to start a new job and find a house. It has not been an easy transition, but she has found a job she loves and is hoping Jim will get the job transfer he is looking for so he can join her in their new home.

Patti shut down a part of herself 30 years ago. It has taken 8 years, and so much HARD work but she has found all the parts of herself again.

New Relationships

Pam and Patti never lived in the same town, never spent much time together away from the family gatherings. They only knew each other in a certain way. Living in the same town (or close enough), my sisters are taking care of each other in ways they never had the opportunity to do before. I live 2 hours away and only see them every few months, but I am not jealous. When we are together it is better than in childhood, we know who we are because of what we have lived through, separately and together. Time dissolves differences, builds bonds, creates appreciation -- all by itself.

Party Time
A few months ago we three sisters had a slumber party at Patti’s house. We had never, just the three of us, spent a night together like that. We ate, drank, laughed, cried and relished beginning to know each other as three sisters - a unit like we have never been.

This past weekend we did it again, only it was better. It was not quite so manic as it was the first time, it was more comfortable, easier and blessed with heart to heart conversations. As I was leaving I said that I had the best time I have ever had with my sisters, that we had never spent that kind of time together, ever in our life. Patti said, “This is why I moved home.”

Thank You
I thank my sisters, both of you, for coming home. I had no idea the kind of gift you were giving ME when you made those heart rending decisions. Thank you. I love you both with all my heart.