Genethliac

We are born barely 13 months apart.  Each year our grandmother buys us the same gift.  The thinking, I’m told, is that we are so close in age treating us differently could cause anarchy. Since my birthday comes first, she spends the next three weeks knowing what will be inside her wrappings.  I can’t recall if the twenty-three days that follow are experienced anticlimactically or anticipatorily.  I guess it depends on the gift.

Growing up we don’t get along very well.  Maybe we are in competition and I just don’t know it?  She is in the popular crowd.  She has lots of friends. She has boyfriends in high school and goes to dances.  I’m jealous.  I’m furious. She “borrows” my things and then carelessly loans them to friends who never seem to be able to return them.  To this day I’m still slightly bitter about Mary Lawrence and my “Eight is Enough” book.  I never did get it back.

Somewhere after high school there is a shift.  I realize that in all of those contentious years in a shared bedroom she’s been hewed and honed into my rock.  It becomes evident we are more alike than we are different. She influences and inspires.  I think I don’t want children until I meet her firstborn.

There are few who I admire and respect more. She’s a lodestar, but in a different way than I am. She’s always been very clear about the family life that she wants, and every day she creates exactly that.  From my perspective she’s built the best nest. Love lives in every corner and crevice of her home; it emanates from the chimney on a cold winter morning, probably even out of the dryer vent. Walking through the front door I’m welcomed with open arms, walking out I’m told I can never leave.

We all carry crosses, but few as visibly and gracefully as she carries hers.  She talks of her challenges and how they’ve made her a better person, shown her what’s inside and given her the opportunity to put it out there in the world in ways she’d never thought possible. She is grounded in acceptance of what comes to her, and understands that little is truly in our control. She turns tribulation into triumph.  She makes it look easy.

And she’s here to walk beside me as I carry my own cross, reminding me that even when I am exhausted I am tough enough.  When my choices are hard or unpopular she affirms for me what I know in my heart to be true and gives me the strength to keep moving forward.  She weeps with me when the road seems impossible to travel.  Tear-stained pages are evidence that my boys take more than a cursory glance at the good book she’s gifted them.  She thinks she doesn’t make a difference.  I know she does. 

As a kid I resent “sharing” my gift with her; it seems less special knowing she'll receive the same thing too.  Today I know that she is the gift.  She shows up on my doorstep with a warm pot of homemade soup and a present for this birthday I’m too preoccupied to celebrate.  I’m so fortunate the stars aligned all those years ago, bonding us to each other for a lifetime. Somehow it feels like her timing is just right.