When I was a child I had a persistent irritating pain. It was something that bothered me constantly and I wondered if I would ever be free of it.
It was with me when I played with my friends, it was with me as I took the daily walk to school. It never went away. It was my younger sister!
She would read my diary and tell my mother all the naughty things I would do (and at times even makes up things I hadn’t done) to get me in trouble. She would pick up the telephone extension and eavesdrop on my telephone conversations. She drove me mad although if I am honest I probably drove her nuts too. In fact I am ashamed to admit that she has a scar on her face from one of our many fights!
If you saw us together today you wouldn’t believe that we were ever anything but close. Even though we now live on separate sides of the Atlantic Ocean, you would have to search long and hard to find two sisters as devoted to each other as we are.
If I had to put my finger on when this transformation happened I would say that the dynamics of our relationship changed after the birth of my first child. Such an event can quite often make you realise what is really important in life and what our priorities should be. It was around that time that we stopped seeing each other as rivals and starting realising that we could be friends, even best friends.
As I reflect over the last fifteen years my heart warms with how we have grown so close. We were maid of honour at each other’s weddings and she held my hand as my second child was born. By the time my little nephew was born I was living four thousand miles away but I was on the end of the phone as he gave his first cry. We have supported each other through the ups and downs of married life and share each other’s deepest darkest secrets.
I am now the mother of four little girls and one of my biggest dreams for them is that they will be blessed with the same kind of closeness that I have with my sister. At the moment my house is full of sibling rivalry and arguments and as much as I try to explain to them how special sisters are, for the time being they are happy to fight.
Whenever I get too stressed out by this constant bickering I think back to my childhood and I am filled with hope that they will discover, as I did, that when God blesses you with a sister then you are the luckiest person in the world.
______________________________________________________________________
