In todays world sisterhood is either one extreme or the other. You either are BFF's (Best friends for ever as my 8 year old tells me), or your enemies with similar parentage!
Well today I call bull poop on the whole thing!!!!!!!
I (me being Kerri), feel I am a reasonable expert on this subject. I have 5 sisters and 5 daughters.
Sisterhood is a relationship that is complex, full of
laughter and rage,
acceptance and rage,
truth and rage,
choice and rage,
love and rage,
dignity and rage,
safety, grounding and you guessed it rage!!
(Awww Sis so much rage, come here and let me give you a rage soothing hug(Christine). (Try not to be to pious you will trip. I have seen you rage many a time)
All this is tied up in a very pretty bow of forgiveness, unconditional love, commitment and the determination to overcome - rage. ( My hugs are miraculous)
When I was in my twenties, we had a great Aunt, she was beautifully fierce, strong, out spoken, and independent (her husband had died long before her). She I believe was a rarity of her time.
One day she fell ill , in fact she was so stubborn that she, I believe was escorted out of her home which had caught on fire (just in the kitchen as she put it, she was perfectly fine!), She was taken to hospital and we were all called to her beside. Six sisters, We all walked in feeling the pain that rips through a person at the thought of someone you love not being there tomorrow. When our eyes looked upon her, she looked as fragile as a broken bird, quite, small and almost lost in the whiteness of the sheets and nightgown.
As we stood around her bed, her eyes suddenly popped open, she eyed everyone of us and out came words I will never forget - "you are sisters, get it together !'
The next day she sprung out of that hospital bed and demanded to go home, lol. She lived for a few decades more after that! (It was her daily ritual of a shot of Whiskey that kept her going i feel (Christine))
But here's what it did to the six sisters. With our tails between our legs and feeling slightly indignant we piled into a motel room and pinky promised that once a year we would go on a sisters weekend away.
We've being doing this for 29 years. Is has not always been easy, in fact there has been times when it has caused physical manifestations of pain or illness, because of anxiety, and stress, matrimonial squabbles or out right arguments. It has lived through heated disagreements, non talking sisters, and the death of our parents.
To be fair I truly didnt think we would come back from the death of our parents. We were spilt, broken, aggrieved, angry and lost. There had been a differencing of opinion so substantial and so deep that it ripped through the very fabric of sisterhood that we had built up over that last 3 decades. Our parents were our quiet holding ground, our unassumed physical and emotional refuge and then they were just gone., in a blink of an eye. Our parents unlike our aunt did not spring back up, in fact within 6 six weeks we were all we had, that and the rage that filled my very being (chuck in the start of menopause for good measure and I was a delight!! Kudo's to my wonderful husband because I would have left me).
I tell you all this because sisterhood is a choice, coming together is a choice, loving each other and living life together is a choice, making history and stories for the generations to come is up to you and the choices you make.
There are no other 5 women in this world I would want as my sisters, I will love them and choose them everyday, and I will live life with them. (and to endure the soppy hugs too, which to be honest was slightly torturous in the early days, there was a lot of air patting going on haha but we are getting very good at it now. I think I even felt a quick double squeeze the other day.) (Only because I must)
They are now my quiet unassuming holding place and quiet refuge.
In the wise words of a very old fierce Aunt "You are sisters, get it together"
Peace out and much love, Kerri
