Sisterhood

News of Sisters January 23 2010


Across the miles

Fly feelings for and with each other.

Sisters suffer or are glad –

The sine waves of our lives curl around each other,

Bathed in bonding light and coiled in compassionate embrace.

One suffers loss;

Another fears that she may seem out of step;

A third reels from fearsome news of cancer;

A fourth smiles – finally employed;

And I, the fifth, emerging from the black abyss of grief,

Feel my heart lifting in the glow of newly forming love.

Yet we’re all connected –

Strands of family fabric intertwined,

Intricately tatted --

Threads enlaced in lifelong strands of love.



Reflection:


I’m one of the “Hyde Girls.” Five of us were born within ten years, 61 to 71 years ago, in industrial Rhode Island and rural southern coastal Massachusetts. “No brothers??!! Five girls??!!” That’s right. Although we’re distinctly individual – so different one from the other that one might question the possibility of us all belonging to the same family – we’re also part of a unit, a matched set of five. It’s amazing to me that the set remains unbroken, although as we age, it’s obvious that one, then the next, and finally all will transition from this life. Three out of four in-laws have now made that final transition. Four of us were married, and now three are widows.

The most recent loss was that of my brother-in-law Fritz just yesterday, after a long struggle with cancer. I feel deeply sad for Dorothy, his wife, my youngest sister. A little over a year ago Fritz and Dorothy came to my house in North Carolina, from theirs in New Hampshire, to provide their consoling presence and hugs at Ellen’s memorial party. Now I’m buying plane tickets to make the reverse trip for the same purpose – to comfort Dorothy after Fritz’s passing.

I think of Fritz when Ellen first met our family in 2000, ten years ago. We were all together -- the whole family -- at a get-together at Dot and Fritz's farm in New Hampshire. Fritz took Ellen aside, and in a conspiratorial tone asked her, "Did you have any idea what you were getting into with the Hyde Girls?" Of course, this was Ellen's first "Hyde Family Experience." She smiled.

Fritz then hitched up the pony to an antique trap, and, assisted by his youngest son, Kyle, who was then 11 years old, took us for a spin up the dirt trails behind their New Hampshire farm. Fritz and Ellen sat side by side on the front seat of the conveyance, Fritz looking handsome and confident as he held the reins and clicked to the pony to move forward, and Ellen -- New Yorker, city girl -- looking a bit dubious. Fritz and Dot's older son, Nathan, then about 14, a tall, handsome redhead, was in charge of barbecuing hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner during our ride in the pony cart. Ellen, Nathan, and Fritz are no longer with us. That happy day remains frozen happy in my memory, though my heart sheds tears as I reflect on how the scene has changed in the intervening ten years.

One of us Hyde Girls, Phyllis, had a brush with cancer last year, and now Susan has been diagnosed with breast cancer; we’re all in the wondering stage – what will happen? How will it go? As Ellen always said, we all know we’ll be making the final trip from this life, but it becomes much more immediate when the bus with our name on it is parked outside our house!

The strands of sisterhood are deep and complex. The sisters are the only people who have known us and we them, all our respective lives. In each other, we see and hear reflections of our parents, and even of Grandma. We share the same memories, although for each of us these stories are indelibly warped by the prism of our birth order and our innate temperaments. Sharing these recollections amplifies the power of memory for each of us. We survived the torments of sibling rivalry – without damaging each other. We have stayed connected, amicably, all of our adult lives. When we get together, we fall naturally and comfortably into the rhythm and pace of family dialogue -- the same laughter, same inflections, same sense of humor as Mom and Dad’s. It’s a primal experience to revert, suddenly, to those long-ago patterns of speech and energy.

The genetic pool we share is warm and comforting. Whatever disturbs the waters whips up distress in all of our hearts.