The first Sister.

I am the eldest of eleven children. Three sisters, and seven brothers. My first few siblings rather appeared on the scene, the last five I watched for, and noticed, when Mom was expecting. We all looked forward to each baby that appeared, and loved them dearly. Each child has grown to be their own entity. Each is purely individual. Each has had happiness and grief and pain. All but one have brought "inlaw siblings" to our family, and we have come to love them, too. One of our dear Sisters in Law has departed this earth, due to cancer. One child was born with a severe mental handicap, locking his world into the world of a two to three year old.

Five years ago, one of our sisters, C, called each of the other sisters and proposed a Sister Retreat. We had grown apart, a little, and she felt that we needed to renew our sisterhood bond. The first year was emotionally rough, but worth it. Each succeeding year we have met at a location central to all of us, and we are growing closer with each retreat. We will always be individuals, we are not much alike in our approaches to life, our means of dealing with the impediments that life throws at us, but our central standards are very much alike. The teachings of our childhood remain ever present.

Eighteen years separate my youngest sister and I. We never really had much time to build bonds, so this is a means of doing just that. M was 3 years old when my husband and I moved two states away, and began our own family. We seldom saw one another because all of us were poor, no extra money to travel. I asked Mom to let my younger sisters come and stay with me in the summers, but she was reluctant to have them far away, and when I was working there was not much they could do during the day if they did come. I was always sad that we couldn't work out a way for me to spend time with them, but the years passed, and so did the opportunities.

I have three very lovely sisters. They are beautiful, real, fun, earnest in their endeavors, faithful to their inner beliefs, and yet each deals with insecurities (as do I ), yearnings, painful experiences of life, and personal allotments of grief and joy.

We are reaching out to each other. It is so important to be loved by one's sisters, and our strengths are multiplied as we reach out with love to each other. We have a shared background in many ways, however, we also did not have the same reaction from our parents. As the oldest, Mom and Dad were very strict with me and my near younger brothers and sister. The last half of the siblings had a more relaxed, more tired, more mellow set of parents. Eleven children are wearing on a couple! There tend to be resentments about the different treatments given the little ones. Because I was first out of the nest, I was not exposed to much difference in treatment. There was some, but, hey! that is life. And then I was gone, with visits perhaps once a year, or every other year, sometimes three years would go by. There were letters, but I was not a letter mailer. I would write letters, but procrastinate mailing them. But there were a few phone calls, they were expensive, so were few.

I love my sisters, I love their personalities, I love their tenacity to living their lives the best they can, I love them equally, and delight in their delights, and sorrow with them when they sorrow. I am looking forward to the great long expanse of eternity, where the bonds we are forging will continue with no end, enriching each other for all eternity.

What more can one ask?