Siblings-Even Into Adulthood

The best thing about having siblings growing up is that they’re still your siblings when you’re grown.

When I think about the friends I’ve had throughout my life, my siblings come to mind first. They have been my lifelong friends, confidants, cheerleaders, and support group.

There’s a trust between siblings that’s hard to find elsewhere. You’ve shared your entire growing up years together, or theirs, depending on where you fall in the birth order.

My older brother Mike (#1) gave me the keys to his car when I was in high school when he left for a cruise in the Navy. Who else would do that?

My sister Sue (#2) and I both took German in high school. We had the opportunity to go on a trip to Germany with our class. My parents could only afford for one of us to go.

Guess who went.

I said she should go because she was a year ahead of me so I had a better chance of getting another opportunity to go. She said I should go.

Neither one of us really wanted to go without the other so we stayed home together.

Lou (#4) and I (#3) shared a room. When we were teenagers, we’d crawl out our bedroom window onto the front porch roof at night.

Sometimes we’d smoke a cigarette, and sometimes we’d lay back and look at the stars and talk about our hopes and dreams.

My brother Paul (#5) and I played basketball fairly often. During one particularly brutal game, he stepped inside the house long enough to make sure our mom had left a piece of his birthday cake without coconut on it because I didn’t like coconut.

Marcie (#6) is exactly seven years, one week, and one day younger than me. I used to go up to her room when she was seven or eight with my guitar and sing her to sleep at night.

Her favorite songs were One Morning in May by James Taylor and One Tin Soldier from the Billy Jack movie.

It really made me feel good that she wanted me to sing to her. She was always my best audience.

Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t angels; we had our share of arguments and fights and throwing rocks at each other.

We tortured our babysitters and we tortured each other. As we grew up, we all learned the fine art of sarcasm and routinely practiced it on each other.

We played practical jokes. We made prank phone calls.

One of us even called the diaper service and ordered a huge load of rags-ex-diapers actually- under a fake name. She would have gotten away with it too if she hadn’t given them our address.

In adulthood, we’ve shared each other’s joys and sorrows. We have loved each other through eight weddings and three divorces.

We have loved each other through job changes, financial crisis, college, boy-and girlfriends, child rearing, health crisis, and the death of our parents.

We survived selling the house that we grew up in, the one our parents lived in for the better part of their almost sixty-one years of marriage.

My sister Lou and I, who both live in Georgia, recently went back home for a week and a half. It was spectacular.

Three of our siblings still live in the area. Our other sister and her husband Dave drove down from Vermont.

It was the first time in several years that we were all physically together.

It felt really good.

It made my heart sing.

I stayed with my brother Mike. We stayed up talking until 5:30 in the morning the night I got there. It was 2:30 in the morning the next two nights.

We all went for drinks at the Roycroft (where the top picture was taken), had a bonfire at Mike’s house, and had a cookout at Scott and Sarah’s house (Mike’s daughter and son-in-law).

I found out that Marcie collects bird nests (I do too!).

I got to meet the new additions to the family-Griffin (Mike’s great-grandson), Griffin’s mother Raven (I fell in love with her, too!), and my great-niece Scarlett (who just turned three and is cute as all get out and a big personality!).

I found out that one of my nieces is pregnant (Woo-Hoo!).

I spent a beautiful evening with two childhood friends (who I’m so lucky to still call friends today) on the front porch of a house on the street where we all grew up.

Mike and I went to the cemetery where our parents are buried along with many relatives on our dad’s side. We wandered through saying hello to all those people we miss so much.

We went to another cemetery to find where our Aunt Helen is buried. It took a while to find her, but we did it.

We went to the cemetery where our sister Elizabeth is buried. She was stillborn and would have been sibling #5 with Paul and Marcie moving to #6 and 7.

Lou and I stopped by to see Elizabeth as we were beginning our trip back to Georgia.

We stood there for a while wondering what it might have been like if she had lived; sharing our memories of mom coming home from the hospital without her.

I’m still digesting all of it, but what I do know for sure is that I want more.

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