This past weekend, my son married into a big Midwestern Family of Women. Oh, the grandfather is still the patriarch, and the men are kindly and have their uses. But the women seriously outnumber the men, and they are the gracious glue that holds everything — and everyone — together. My daughter-in-law grew up as much in her aunts’ and grandmother’s homes as her own, and there are cousins and sisters and nieces aplenty, with an abundance of hilarious stories of their growing-up adventures.
We had a ladies lunch at an adorable tearoom-restaurant on Friday, where even the littlest girls were welcomed and drank fruit punch out of their china teacups. There was much laughter and teasing and teary testimonials of the great love these women have for my son’s lively and fun-loving new wife, who is clearly a favorite daughter, sister, cousin and aunt.
I watched all this with great joy — and some sadness. I am sisterless, the youngest child and only daughter in a family of four children, three older brothers and me. Mother had twin girls who died at birth and another stillborn daughter. I alone survived, and that pretty well sums it up. We grew up a significant distance from most of my parents’ relations, and the trips we did make to visit Mother’s family were usually lonely, boring afternoons because, while my brothers had cousins to play with, I had no female cousins my own age.
I remember being very lonely at times as a child, and I am now not close to my brothers and their families, particularly since Mother’s death. That emotional distance has to do more with the peculiar pathology of our family life while we were growing up than with any physical distance. (I won’t get into that now.) There’s no real animosity, they just aren’t interested in me. I have tried repeatedly to create events and organize outings for all of us, but I always seem to get it wrong somehow, one of the sisters-in-law gets impatient or offended, and I’ve finally given up trying. It’s just too painful. Sometimes it’s easier to be alone.
I’ve realized that my best friends over the years have also been sisterless, or else not close to the sisters they have. We tend to find each other, we sisterless ones. Oh, I know that there can be a dark, suffocating side to close families, and not all sisters are born to be soul mates. But I so envy the ones who are. There’s something about that bond, that shared experience, that really knits siblings together.
This isn’t meant to be a pity post, and I don’t intend to rain on the joy of this weekend for my son and his new family. It has been really lovely, likely the most joyous wedding I’ve ever experienced. But I was touched by a poignant post from ByJane on the loneliness that sometimes accompanies midlife, when some dreams come to fruition, while others end, or have to be abandoned. It all got me thinking about my own particular kind of aloneness.
This sense I have sometimes of being on the outside, of not being able to participate fully in a community that others seem to have in abundance, is one of the recurring themes of my life. And when life repeatedly presents you with a set of recognizable circumstances, I suspect you’re supposed to learn something from it. But what? Compassion? Independence? Patience? The meaning of love?
Perhaps I’ll add a tag to my blog: Sisters wanted. No experience necessary.
June 22, 2008 at 10:26 am
I have that outsider sense too, and yet I grew up in a family of women–my mother’s sisters and their children, almost all of whom are female. My cousins can still make me feel taken care of (which seems to be a huge theme in my life), but my sister–not so much. And really, none of them are around anyway. I know that longing you have…
June 22, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I think the sense of feeling outside is common to writers and has little to do with real circumstances. Or perhaps more accurately people who see themselves as “outside” in their inner world deliberately replicate that in the outer — many years an expatriot, I used to think I felt alienated because I was an alien, until I began to wonder whether I was not an alien because I was the sort to be alienated.
From that perpetual feeling of being on the outside of a community what you learn is nothing deeper than that whatever else is happening, you have always the capacity to step back and observe. It isn’t always a gift; it leads to the kinds of longings you, and others, have expressed — but sisters probably won’t cure you. (And you probably don’t really want a cure.)
June 23, 2008 at 6:49 am
Thanks, Jane. You inspired the post.
Interesting point of view, Duchess, and very well stated. I have sometimes wondered if I really want to trade my outsider status if it means giving up my ability to observe. It would really be trading one type of richness for another, and I find I often prefer to stand back and take in the whole picture.
But, darn it, sometimes I’d just like someone to talk to and to include me!
June 23, 2008 at 9:07 pm
And then there are those of us who have sisters who still envy other women and their sisters.