Thank God For You

Dear Carol,

I spent the weekend after Christmas this year fixing ornaments that I’d been putting back in the box without hanging them up for over a decade now, and I came across two that actually belong to you. I sat here with superglue fixing little elf ears and angel wings, knowing your Christmases must have somehow been a little less bright since we both moved away from home and I took these instead of you. Which of course started me thinking down a long and winding road of all the places we’ve been in the 47 years you’ve had the distinct honor of being my sister.

Mom has told us so many times about the day I got away from the playpen (because Karen refused to be contained) and headed for the open basement stairs. But you toddled over and sat on my ankle, hanging me at the top of the landing until Mom came looking for us. I have no idea how long you held me there, or if you even realized you were saving the life of the person who had thoroughly disrupted yours, but lucky you – I lived to be your sister another day.

I remember being five and chasing you and your friend Annie into the garage, demanding you play with me. When I refused to vacate, the two of you decided to leave instead. You could have dodged out under the big old pull-down garage door, but you stood there like a little 7-year-old weightlifter, holding it over your head as long as you could, trying to make me come out before I got locked in the dark. And I promise, I don’t blame you for the fact that it dropped right when I was under it and I ended up with 8 stitches in my head. I got a Happy Meal out of that deal – and you know what a rare treat that was. No matter how big a brat I was, you really didn’t want me to suffer alone.

That summer we moved to Houston, while Mom and Dad were both lost in their new jobs and the culture shock of leaving Ohio, I latched on to you like you were the last human on earth. We rode the bus to the nearest mall to hang out together that whole summer before going off to our separate schools and meeting new friends. One afternoon we sat on the wall outside the mall, waiting for the bus to pick us up, and we made solemn promises that we would treat each other like equals, no matter what. True to your word, throughout my middle school years, you let me ride my bike behind you and your friends (who made fun of my perpetual experiments with blue eyeshadow), and even though you called me a brat, you never stopped me from coming over when they invited me to swim at their houses.

We went our very separate ways in high school. Yet, for some reason boys kept having crushes on both of us, often one after the other, but sometimes even at the same time. No matter what social circles we were in, we would always come together to pass the phone back and forth when the boys called, so they would never know which one of us they were talking to. It was our own secret game, and it kept them on their toes.

When you became a senior, you let me stretch out my novice sewing skills to make your prom dress. And you wore it. And smiled in every single photo. I was incredibly proud – and looking back at those photos, I realize you were incredibly brave.

Then college took you one way and me another. Right after college came back-to-back weddings, new jobs, and then the babies. SO many babies. For a few years in there, it seemed like the thousand miles between us was more like a million, with our husbands and kids to care for, in a time before cell phones, and plenty of chaos.

Then a few years later, the unthinkable happened. My marriage fell apart, and I was stranded back in Ohio, 1200 miles away from you and Mom and Dad. I went through the worst of times – jobless, broke, and for a time, without so much as a home to call my own. But you never hesitated to say yes – no matter how many times I asked to come visit. No matter how long I stayed. No matter whether I brought the kids or the dogs with me. Once you even sent me a cell phone just so I could drive down to Texas and have one on the road with me. Money occasionally slipped into my purse. Money I know you didn’t have. And your poor husband – in those years after my divorce, I became a fixture in your house far more often than I might actually have been welcome, but you never said a word. I just simply took the couch until I was ready to go home again.

I love that whenever I came to visit, whatever frame of mind I was in, you always just let me be fun Aunt Karen. You opened up your friend group and let me ease in like I simply belonged. I never felt like an outsider on game nights, like when we invented piñata poker (because no one could wait for the final hand in Texas Hold ‘Em without grabbing all the chips in the middle of the table). I love that I wandered the aisles of your grocery store, on the phone with your friends, picking out wine for our next dinner party.

I love that when I met my second husband, you and all the kids managed to wind your way up to Ohio to approve of him. And I loved spending that month ahead of the wedding with my favorite youngest niece while the other five kids were in Texas. It was as though you sent her to me “just to visit,” knowing I would need help with all the wedding details I didn’t think would be a big deal, which of course, were.

After that second husband became “my person,” and we quit talking every day, I know you could see that he was starting to drive a wedge between us. And yet, you read that letter I wrote you one summer, asking you to accept that he had become my priority and while I missed our close friendship, to please understand that my loyalty was to him first. I actually accused you of being jealous that I had replaced you; that I didn’t need you to rescue me anymore. You didn’t condescend to me. You didn’t shut me out. You let me run off at the mouth like that same little brat from middle school. You let me tell you that you were less important than you’d been my entire life. And you never stopped loving me.

When there was a big family blowup that didn’t even involve you and me, but we got caught up in the drama, you and I fell into the worst fight I can ever recall having. My husband took my side. He started to pull me in and turn me away from the entire family. For months this issue hung over our heads. And I allowed him to tell me the drama all came from the Texas family. That we up in Ohio had handled it perfectly. In order to restore some semblance of family unity, you came to Ohio and offered him an apology for offending him. You fell on your sword – because I asked you to – just to make my life easier.

And when that same husband walked out on me early in 2020, and my second marriage fell apart in epic fashion, you came, without a second thought, to hold me while I screamed. You fed me when I refused to eat. You started the phone chain with Mom and my best friend and continued to work around the clock to take care of me, even when you couldn’t stay any longer. You came back six months later for the tortuous process of packing up and selling my home – the place where I’d finally become happy and stable over the past decade. The place I’d loved since before I’d even met the second husband. You sat with me while the divorce was finalized, while the deed was signed, and then while boxes were moved into an apartment. You took over managing my sewing business like a boss so I could shut it down long enough to move. You handled me. You lifted, you carried, you got bruised and battered. And you did it all without complaining. (And of course, for free booze.)

During the course of those past couple of years, when we finally put a label on all the incredible highs and lows you’d watched me go through my whole life, you were one of the first to dig in and ask how to help. You took my bipolar diagnosis in stride. You researched it. You asked me questions about it. You struggle, like I do every day, to understand where Karen’s big personality ends and the disease begins. But again, you refuse to judge. You accept that this is something else about your sister that deserves grace and understanding.

You continue to try to figure out how to help me settle in somewhere. You are the first person in our family to fully accept that there is no long-term, full-time job in my future. You are the first person to accept, and to help me accept, that there are limitations on what I can do, and to not be ashamed of them. And when we talk about future inheritances and whether those might help protect my future, you talk about how much of those should come to me. Even when I rail against it, you shrug it off, saying that you never expect to inherit anything anyway. We joke about it, because that's just what we do, but one time, in a rare moment of sincere emotion, you said the most amazing thing. You reminded me that you have a husband, and a stable life you’ve been building for over 25 years. If an inheritance gives me something of my own, that I can’t do for myself, something to hold on to that no husband can ever take away from me again, then letting me have more than my share is simply the right thing to do.

That day I cried. Really hard.

I have chased you. I have inserted myself into your life. I have been irresponsible. I have expected you to nurture me and my kids whenever we’ve shown up on your doorstep. I have cast you aside for a husband. I have disregarded your personal life by latching onto you as a safety net. And I have asked you for the impossible so many times. To be strong when I cannot. To be flexible when I refuse to bend. To pack boxes when I am paralyzed with fear. And at the end of the day, your answer is yes. Always yes. You treat me like a sister, over and over again.

You are the strongest woman I know. I bring the bad jokes to our sisterhood; you bring the glue that holds it together. Thank God for you.

With all my love,

Karen