Sisterhood is a Love Story.
Sisterhood is a love story of its own.Danielle and I have been writing ours with Maddie since the day she was born.It started something like, “She’s pooping in the bath again!” Then there was the Afro wig stuffed sloppily in her baiting suit bottoms and the dare to ring the neighbors’ doorbell to showcase it. There was falling off an ATV in the desert. Learning to hula hoop through entire songs on summer nights. Making a Fortune Teller booth in the guest bedroom. Re-creating an Egyptian desert in the construction site down the street. Stealing wall caulking. Losing the dog. I froze Maddie’s underwear everyday one summer.We did what you do when you share bedrooms and bras and secrets and crushes and tears.We fell in love.Maddie, you have stretched my capacity to hold more curiosity and complexity. In all our adventures, in all our dares and dreams, I thought I was guiding you to be brave. Climbing up the side of the chimney framing in the construction site, tricking you into going on ‘The Ghost Rider’ at Knotts Berry Farm, holding our breath at the bottom of the pool.These are ways a big sister teaches.I didn’t know you were the one who would show me; who would show us all, what bravery really is.When you’re the baby in the family and you get sick in a way that no one else in your family ever has, you have to be so strong. You have to be resilient, calm, stalwart. You have to fight to hold on to all those memories; to the desire to make more with those you love so dear. You have to fight for *everything*.I remember the waiting room the day we got the news. The white floor, the big windows looking at nothing. I remember when the nurse was trying to identify who everyone was to Maddie. She said, “Who is going to marry the patient?” Andy never paused. I think he’s been saying “I do” since the day they met. Nothing was going to change that.And do you know what you have to be when someone you want to marry gets very sick? You have to be so brave. And that’s what Andy is too.Andy gets Maddie’s jokes. Andy gets Maddie’s type- A / procrastinator work mentality. He will watch Friends re-runs over and over. He always holds open doors and holds her hand. Andy even laughs at me. For Christmas one year he got me a ‘Pee funnel’ for road trips to satisfy my never ending penis jokes. Andy comes on all family trips. He’ll take the red-eye and sleep on the floor. He stops by our house when he’s in town even if Maddie isn’t.Andy gets Maddie’s sisters.We’ve been saying ‘We do too’ to him since the day we met.
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A great mother and father raised us into the women we are becoming.I know now, what it’s like to raise sisters. How important and lucky it is. How emotionally draining it can be; how much of my makeup and bathroom and secrets I’ll have to share. It’s the best and scariest thing I’ve ever done.But you know what makes it possible? I know how to be brave now. I have my sisters to call and laugh and cry and commiserate with. I have our love story in my DNA.Let’s all toast to Maddie and Andy.To love stories!
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+Photos by Bethany Carlson Photography, Half Moon Bay, California.