Being my sister’s sister

When people ask me what it was like to grow up in Europe, I point out how the family albums might differ from those of my friends born and raised in the Midwest, but our memories can be similar: Our back yards, our make-believe games, the songs that made all the difference at that school dance.

Nobody asks me what it was like to grow up with my big sister. They should. I might not have realized it at the time, but now I know how fantastically special she is.

For large stretches of time, S and I were each other’s only companions. And that was a very good thing.

A summer’s day was incomplete if it didn’t include long explorations of the fields behind our house, playing tennis in the yard with our plastic rackets and sponge balls until it grew so dark we could no longer see, choreographing synchronized swim dances at our neighbor’s pool, and eating hot, buttered popcorn in front of the TV, watching our favorite Fred Astaire movies.

Long car trips to visit grandparents meant snuggling into the back seat with lots of pillows, snacks and giggling until we drove our mother to distraction and were silenced by the threat of her reaching behind the seat to get a hold of whichever one of us was within reach.

As children, eating at restaurants meant coming stocked with paper and pens. We would draw to our hearts’ content: ladies in fancy dresses were a favorite subject, but often we’d play “spaghetti” where the one would draw a squiggly line and the other would have to make something out of it. (These times invariably trained us to be indefeatable when we got older and teamed up to play Pictionary).

There was a solidarity we shared that I didn’t realize was rare.

It is thanks to my sister that we are as close as we are. As the older one, she set the tone for how we were going to relate. It wasn’t only that she let me join her sleepover with her friends (where they terrified me with the notion of piranhas in my sleeping bag), but that she allowed for our alliance. She included me. She was on my team.

When my mother was drinking to excess, she was the one I called at college for emotional support. When I got duped out of hundreds of dollars by a shady boyfriend, she loaned me the money to get back in the black and never once got impatient with my lengthy - and paltry - payback efforts. When we had planted roots in different cities, she was the one to initiate an annual Sisters’ Weekend in Miami. And yes, when I had to buy something to wear to my mother’s funeral, she was the one comforting both me and the sales lady as I wept in the dressing room.

My sister is the other side of me. She’s the sea glass to my storm. My sister has taught me about dignity, strength, grace and beauty. She has shown me about love, respect and facing fears. She has displayed courage and vulnerability in the same moment. She has lived in the moment and shared it with me.

I know all these things so inherently that to put it into words makes me all the more aware of all that I have omitted from this tribute. It also explains why, until my sister showed up on my doorstep - having flown to New York from Hawaii for a long weekend - I didn’t have any desire to try on a wedding dress. I had been engaged four months. How could I take this first step towards such a big day without her being in on it from the first moment? Without realizing it, I was waiting for her.

I understand why she lives in Hawaii. I understand why we are no longer roommates. I also understand that it’s healthy for us to not be quite so attached at the hip as we were. But that doesn’t change how much I rely on her to be in my life. So on the occasion that we get to be in the same place at the same time, we fall immediately back into our groove, as if nary a moment had passed. As soon as we get back to our lives, I have to readjust to her being gone all over again and I’m blue for days.

This time, it’s easier, knowing that she’s coming back for Christmas.

I can handle a month.

The Dressing Room

I have flown four thousand miles to spend a long weekend with H. in the city and to celebrate her engagement to O. First thing Friday morning finds us in a wedding dress shop off lower Fifth Avenue. The reality of the situation doesn’t hit either one of us until we are standing in the hushed room with attendants gliding past in stocking feet courtesy of the No Shoe policy. (The irony is not lost on me; living in Maui, local culture dictates that I most often have to leave my shoes at the door, no matter how perfect or necessary they are to my ensemble. Now, in Manhattan for a weekend, I have on my November in the City Outfit: dress, tights…and the perfect boots that I am required to remove at this very moment. The attendant offers me white, cloth slippers; I decline.) We are surrounded by dresses in white and champagne and ivory. Faux white roses spill out of bowls on coffee tables. Brides-to-be rustle about in their confections. H. breaks into a panicked sweat about how Traditional Wedding it all feels. I dutifully have a sympathetic anxiety attack and swear that an itchy hive is appearing on my neck. But we have an appointment and before H. can change her mind, Marni sits us down to find out what H is looking for. She isn’t really sure, but somehow Marni extracts the necessary Can’ts and Won’ts and Could’s and then H. is whisked away. I sit on the cream-colored couch and wait.

As sisters, H and I have done a fair amount of shopping together, and quite frankly, the experience has often been a daunting one. For many years, H., of 1940s movie star beauty, has been her body’s worst critic, and The Dressing Room has brought out the worst of it…not to mention her running commentary on the abuse of sizing guidelines in This Country. But of all the bad shopping trips, the worst bar none was the one at Banana Republic in March of 2002. Nothing adds more sting to a skirt not fitting quite right than the fact that the skirt in question is be worn to your own mother’s funeral; a funeral that two weeks earlier you did not see coming. Oh, poor Kimberly, lovely sales girl, so pretty and upbeat - how could she have known? As I handed yet another dark skirt to H. to try on, Kimberley bounced in suggesting a bright, pink blouse to compliment the skirt. H. declined. Kimberley persisted, and before I could run interference, H. fell apart, utterly and completely, on the stool in the dressing room corner. My sister was racked with grief in a retail shop. I could not make her pain go away, so I did the only thing I could; I stayed beside her. Kimberley backed out slowly through the curtained doorway.

Over eight years have passed since that day, and now I am sitting outside a dressing room with a stomach full of happy, fluttering butterflies. I want H. to love this moment and to feel absolutely fabulous. And then, there she is, standing in front of me in a dress so perfect for her that I think my mother must have swooped in from heaven and placed it in H’s dressing room, kind of as a do-over for that last fiasco, but more so, I believe, because she wants to be here for this, too. H. is beaming and beautiful and literally lit-up from the inside out. And me, I’m a lucky sister. Two dressing rooms. Two significant moments. Both of them immense, indelible, Life. So what do I do? I cry. But I cry happy tears, tears made so much sweeter for having lived all this together.