There was a time when I thought that the greatest gift I could give my children was to be their mom. To be the one they go to for everything in this world they could possibly need. Every ache, every moment of joy, every question, every struggle, every……anything. In my adult life, there is so much I still go to my own mother for. I am eternally grateful to have a mom I have been able to rely on in so many ways throughout my life and I intend to be there for my daughters should they call upon me in their time of need. Recently, however, I have come to realize that the greatest gift I could give my girls is not myself, it will always be each other.
My sister is almost 5 years older than me and needless to say, I was quite the pain in her side when we were kids. I always wanted to be around her and her friends and they would do anything they could to avoid me from hanging around. I would get such a thrill to see the light on underneath her bedroom door and hope that tonight would be a night she would allow me to crawl into her queen size bed with her and talk until long after it had grown dark. I knew she hated having to babysit me (and our younger brother) while her friends were headed to the movies or shopping malls, but at the time she never made me feel bad about it. When I got my period in the 4th grade (too young to feel comfortable talking to my mom about it) I immediately ran to her and she let me know exactly how to take care of it. In the 8th grade when the snotty girls were being hard on me, she called and pretended to be my mom to get me out of school early. She showed up in her yellow Cadillac she had bought from our grandpa and walked right into my English class to get me. We spent the afternoon at the mall and I laughed about how the boys will want my number now just to call hoping she would answer. She was always there for me when it really mattered. Sure, we had our fair share of disagreements and fought as sisters do when we were kids, but I could never have made it through those years with out her.
Now as women with daughters of our own, there is so much I still learn from her. She is a courageous, loving, tenacious, amazing woman and mother to her children. We are two opposite sides of the same coin, both having different attributes given to us from our parents. She is the first one to laugh at me when I embarrass myself (which happens plenty) and the first one to silently listen when I’m breaking. She makes choices in her life that I can only imagine having the courage to do and yet still seems to appreciate any advice I am able to give her. She is every single bit of the sister that I pray my daughters will be to each other.
My oldest is learning the hard truths of having to share more than just toys, but things such as space, parental attention, household responsibilities, and patience with her younger sisters. My middle daughter has had to learn how to disappear when appropriate to keep from being in the middle of things and how to get what she needs, even though she’s not old enough for what her older sister gets and not young enough to be catered to any longer. My youngest has had to learn to fight for her place in this family and not take any push back from her older sisters just because she’s the littlest. They don’t realize how much they are already learning just by having each other.
If there is ever a moment in their lives they cannot or will not come to me, they will always have each other to lean on. I want them to have their secrets, to have their inside jokes, to have the things that drive them crazy about me that only they will understand. I pray that they will grow up loving each other and if one day have families of their own, enjoy a cup of coffee or glass of wine on the deck and watch their children play together in the yard. I hope they can call each other up any time of the day and talk about their jobs, their husbands, their in laws, their kid’s loose tooth, or their vulnerabilities. I pray that one day when I’m gone, they will grow closer together than ever before.
Because I have never been their greatest gift, their sisters are.
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