SISTERHOOD

There was a point in the new Little Women movie I saw recently where I found myself wiping tears away.  It wasn't any particular plot point that got me; it was the re-realization that I will never know what it's like to have a sister.  I was the middle child, bookended by brothers, made more isolating by the age gaps between us.  I loved them, of course, but our lives were lived in very different spheres with very different interests, experiences, and expectations.

My mother and I had a mother-daughter bond, and yet our differences (and my rebellions) created times of rift and drift that left me longing for a closer relationship, a bond of friendship as well as genetic connection.  She likely felt the same. We both disappointed each other and yet longed for each other too. That kept us happy to be together when we could; we worked to find ways to connect and thankfully did, in her later years.

I thought I might find the female familial connection I longed for if I had daughters.  I did not.  I raised two amazing boys into amazing men.  I loved being a mom to boys!  Little girl energy started to feel foreign, unfamiliar.  I realized I didn't know how to "be" with little girls anymore.  I didn't know "girly" things like French braids or glittery nail painting or having every surface covered in pink and purple do-dads.  Having declared my feminism in the early 70s I also declared I didn't like that girly stuff anyway...but maybe I sort of do.

Then came my daughters-in-law who are amazing women and I love and admire them.  We are forging friendships within this family of men, but I never forget that their original and still most important female connections are to the mothers and and in one case, sisters, they left behind when they moved here.   I don't have a long shared history with them and they are busy with their careers, families, and social lives that are not mine to interrupt with my own longings.  We don't talk daily, don't text to check in with each other multiple times a day/week, but I'm thrilled to spend time with them when I can and look forward to deeper bonding over time.

And then.....blessed be!  Granddaughters!  I adore them and they me.  And we have a bond of shared intimacy, experiences, emotions, teaching, and learning.  They are young and will necessarily pull away from me at some point -- hanging out with Grandma will not be quite so exciting as it is now when they are eager to be with me and shower me with hugs and laughter.  But I think what we are creating together will be part of the fabric of their lives that won't fray.  For me it will forever be a highlight of my life.

Family aside, I also realize that I've made "surrogate" sisters in the form of female friendships.  I've always had a best friend or two.  Female friendship is very important to me, maybe precisely because I didn't have sisters.  Without my women friends, I am adrift in a world teeming with testosterone.  Maybe it's why I've spent 45 years in various groups of women: consciousness-raising groups, co-op preschools, PTA, women's personal growth groups, activist groups formed by women, yoga studios, a career in female-dominated social services.  Maybe it's why the sisterhood of feminism called so strongly to me and still does.

I realize I idealize the relationships between kin sisters.  They are not all loving and healthy and fun.  Sisters don't all band together in hard times, play together in good times, overcome obstacles, support each other, and end up bonded for life, like the March sisters of Little Women fame.  Still, when I hear a friend refer to her sister, I'm a bit envious.  It sounds like something exotic and unknown, something I just don't "get".  I watched that movie as if visiting a different world and I wondered...what would it be like to have a sister?

At least, that's the view from here....©