Tag: sister

To Forty, With Love

Surprising is the sentiment that sisterhood brings

To a life once thought to be full.

It turns out that the sister-less are, after all

Without a love most pure and wonderful.

A sister-in-law, to be clearer just here,

Is an especially delightful kind.

Born from the love of the love of her life

And the blind puppy love that began mine;

Matured through the freedom to laugh and to cry

At said love, both with him and without.

But it doesn’t stop there, no one is safe

For she knows my family inside and out.

This gift and small curse she bears gracefully

Though perhaps I’ve been sort of short-sighted.

Maybe sisters aren’t always so perky and fun,

Pretty, witty, clever and open-minded.

I do know Jen though, with her warm eager eyes,

Inquisitive and mischievous smile.

She’s been the best sister I could possibly have

Invariably, through life’s greatest trials.

I hope to be as strong, sweet and patient as her,

For all of the rest of my days.

So with eternal love, humility and gratitude

I wish her the best of birthdays.

.

Singleminded Aunt Ida

The sister stands to the side, she sighs. Four weeks to the day since her divorce was final. Six months since she walked out the door. Her sister’s engagement doesn’t make her miss her ex-husband, not a thing could induce such emotions, but it does make her feel her aloneness.

There is a thing in this culture, a big stark white elephant in the room or the park or the engagement party, about a woman alone. She doesn’t have a date, so something must be wrong with her. Is she a lesbian? The relatives begin to ask. The complicated affairs which ended her marriage are too convoluted to share with Aunt Ida, so she asks her nephew if his daughter is of another persuasion. Because how could a pretty, smart, seemingly sane girl, be alone? She feels, and the rest of the party would be lying if they disagreed, that there is something wrong with her.

A single man is a bachelor. He’s playing the field, taking his time, finding the right choice. A single woman is waiting, idle while the universe decides when the right man should come along. As if she has nothing to do with the matter when it’s right, however, everything to do with it when it’s wrong. Some wrong choice that she made, or series of choices, that left her flawed, flippant, or scorned.

She sighs again and finishes her champagne. Fuck you Aunt Ida, she thinks, walking away. Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with alone.

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