There is something about sisters. Sisters are friends and confidantes and comrades. Sisters talk and listen and fight and compete. Sisters hold hands, literal and metaphorical, through life. Sisters share stories and clothes and wine and parenting tips. Sisters look like each other, but also very different. Sisters have conversations, silly and honest and deep and slippery. Conversations that sustain.
One of my very favorite blogs to read is written by sisters. I love to read the alternating and wonderful words of two women who grew up in the same home and in the same family and who now have their own homes and families. I am the middle of five sisters and I hope that one or more of my sisters contributes, in some way, to this blog someday. I would love that.
The other day, something amazing happened. Something deceptively simple. Something I feel compelled to share. It was early evening. I was home with the girls. We were all in the living room waiting for Husband to come home. I was multi-tasking. I was on the phone with my older sister. Toddler sat on the couch and I placed a bowl of microwaved Alphatots in front of her (mother of the year for sure). I told her to be careful because they were hot. Baby walked over and reached for the bowl. Instead of pulling her tiny hand away from the bowl in an effort to protect, I hung back and kept chatting with my sister on my cell. I watched. And listened.
Toddler looked at her baby sister. She watched as her baby sister grabbed a letter. And then she said something. “Be careful. Those are very hot.”
Baby, ever the diminutive dare-devil, stuffed the letter in her mouth.
Toddler looked at her and said, “Those letters are very hot. Are you okay? Are you okay?”
Baby chewed, her round cheeks jiggling. She looked up at her big sister, blue eyes bright. And then she nodded. And answered her sister’s question. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.”
At this, Toddler nodded too. “Okay then.” And then she held out the bowl to offer Baby some more.
Their very first sisterly conversation. Words exchanged. Understanding palpable.
And all of this transpired while I was on the phone with my own sister. This might not seem like a big deal to you. But to me, it was big. To me, it was symbolic and sweet and something worth memorializing; That while I chatted with my big sis, my little girls chatted with each other. They did not just share. They shared words. They communicated. They had their first conversation. The first of so many.
Maybe I am crazy to do this, but in moments like these I flash forward. To the distant future. I imagine these two creatures, these baby girls, many years down the line. As high schoolers. I imagine them sitting there at the dining table, exasperated after a long day of learning, complaining about homework, or maybe each other. I imagine them bickering sweetly and effortlessly like sisters so often do.
And I imagine interrupting them, snapping them out of their sister zone. I imagine telling them about one evening in late October of 2009 when they were both very little. You had your very first conversation about a bowl of steaming hot microwave letters. At hearing this, I imagine them smiling at me and each other. And then, if they are anything like my sisters and I were, they will probably roll their eyes and one of them will probably say something like, “Oh, Mom, you didn’t cook back then either?” And at the rolled eyes, and sassy words, and threadbare memories, and timely truth, I would smile proudly.
Cheers to first words and to first conversations. Cheers to sisters, big and little and middle, now and later and always.
