A Story for Another Day

I recently returned from a visit to my home away from home, the home of my mother and my sisters and their families - Victoria, B.C.

It is always a bitter sweet visit for me.  This time more so as I was brought there this time by my mother's illness.  I felt a need to do something besides thinking of her. A need to do something I hoped would be helpful.  A need to comfort.  

While I believe I was a comfort to her  I think more that my mother and my mothers house was a comfort to me.  Many of the things I grew up with are there. My history is there.  The oak table that I ate almost every meal at growing up, a coveted antique writing desk, my mothers prized Wedgwood china, pictures painted by my mother, grandmother and grandfather, my childhood dresser, and the collection of tea cups. There are also the photo albums and boxes of loose photos documenting my mother's childhood and then that of me and my siblings.

Being surrounded by those things reminded me that I have a connection. A connection to more than what is mine here in my house with my children. There are my nieces and nephew who even in their own uniqueness carry some traits of generations past in both appearance and mannerisms.  There are my sisters who at one time were my room mates, my closest friends, my confidants, my sharers of clothes, jokes, music, and day to day life.  We share the history of our childhood and all that entails.  

In the years past we have drifted apart with vast distance of land and life between us. But they still remain my sisters through all that life has thrown at us.  Tied together by blood, but kept together by love. For all that we are different there is at least one thing we all have in common - our mother and our love for her.

Mom

“Sister. She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defence attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child.” 

― Barbara Alpert

Horsing around with my sisters