[Warning: Sappiness ahead]
The biggest change: I lost my mother back in June. She battled her sickness for a long time, almost five years, and when her final moment came, it came quickly. My sister Laura was with her down in our little hometown in Connecticut, and then minutes later, my sister Marianne was there as well. It was the early hours of the morning when Laura called me in Massachusetts and our sister, Sharon, down in Georgia to give the news.
It was at that moment that we were a family more than we had ever been before. Because while we were parentless for the first time, our father having died back in 1991, we had each other.
This was big. Very big. Because four sisters growing up in one family, all with individual personalities but all raised to be independent, intelligent, and strong, are bound to have differences if not all out warfare. Which did happen growing up. And still does happen, even today, when we discernibly love each other, but are still susceptible to becoming pissed off at one another, because we are human. But no matter how far apart we drift, the DNA we share will continually bring us back.
And so, this is my sisterly love letter to Marianne, Laura, and Sharon. My sisters. May the new year clear our hearts of the sadness that is loss. And may we always understand and love each other, even when we don't. You know what I mean.
Happy New Year, everyone. And peace.
