I love my siblings. Truly. We live three hundred miles apart and are all grown with families of our own, so I don’t see them enough. Life happens; getting together sometimes takes an act of Congress.
My sister Deann, three and a half years younger than me, has seven children ranging in age from late teens to early thirties, plus four grandchildren with one more on the way. She’s a busy woman. There are baseball games, birthday parties, weddings, baby showers, graduations, dates with Grammy, church activities, carpools, coveted romantic getaways with her husband, and so much more!
My brother David, fourteen years my junior, has two boys, preteen and teen, who are busy with school activities and sports. He and his wife are active in their church, hold down full-time jobs, are involved with their community, love beach vacations, and unlike his introverted sister, he has a healthy network of friends.
Siblings are biologically connected in a manner like no other human relationship. We are all different and yet, the same. We share a unique DNA bond. Both of my siblings are taller than me. My brother’s bathroom scale is much kinder to him than it is to my sister and me. All three of us have light-colored eyes, but my brother’s eyes are blue versus the green we girls share. Come to think of it, waiting fourteen years to be born has afforded him more height, less weight, and bluer eyes; I guess my sister and I should have postponed our arrivals too.
Our opinions on politics, religion, and child-rearing sometimes differ, but because our relationship is more valuable than being “right,” we generally agree to disagree and move on to discuss less volatile subjects.
Here is the one thing I know to be true; my siblings will always be there for me when it matters most. Although it hasn’t actually happened yet, there have been several occasions when my husband and I thought we would need temporary housing, and we know that my brother’s home is always open should the need arise.
When my husband, brother, son, and I were involved in a horrific car accident, my sister dropped everything to drive three hundred miles and be at the hospital with us for days! When we were released, she came to our home to help care for us while we recovered.
In May 2020, my husband’s younger sister died suddenly. Due to COVID restrictions, her memorial was closed to immediate family only, and my siblings could not be there. Less than one year later, his younger brother passed. The trauma of losing two siblings in a year is unimaginable; mix in a father with declining health, his brother being out of state at the time of death, and the difficulty factor increases.
When my mother-in-law passed in 1997, the family faced the difficult decision to end life support, a circumstance I would not wish on anyone. In 2021 we faced the same terrible situation with my brother-in-law but in a different state.
I did not want my husband to travel alone, and he did not want me to endure the horror of ending life support once again. We did not share our dilemma with anyone, yet somehow my brother knew. Out of the blue, he volunteered to make the trip from Texas to Georgia and stand beside my husband. That selfless act of love brings me to tears even now as I write this blog.
My brother-in-law was laid to rest on a rainy summer day with both of my siblings present. I knew my brother was coming, but I had not expected my sister. Her oldest daughter got married in Vegas on Saturday, and the funeral was Monday. Not wanting to spoil her happy event, I’d considered not even telling my sister about the service until it was over. As we were driving into town that Monday morning, my sister texted that she was close and would arrive shortly.
With my husband and I having celebrated thirty-five years of marriage, our four siblings were no strangers to each other. My brother, only four at the time, was the ring bearer at our wedding. My sister was a bridesmaid who walked down the aisle on the arm of my husband’s brother, Marc. His sister, Terri, was also one of my bridesmaids.
It was an incredibly bittersweet moment for me to have both my siblings at my side while my husband buried his only remaining sibling, but at that moment, my siblings were also his siblings, and we are both incredibly grateful for them. Deann and David, thank you for dropping everything to drive three hundred miles, one way, just to be there for us. We love you both so much!
Until Next Time,
Becky J Miller
“Warrior Princess”