Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Sibling(s) (05/01/08)
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TITLE: My Sister, My Friend - A Double-Strand Bond | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ruth Howard
05/07/08 -
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There I was, my blond frizzy-curled head hovering over yours – red and covered in dark, straight hair. I was 16 months old and you were just a few hours into your new world.
Who knows what was going through my toddler head as I studied this new little person. Did I have any idea I was meeting my new best friend – my friend for life? Did I know then that we would be inseparable from then on?
I have hardly a childhood memory that does not include you. We were roommates for over 20 years. We spent hours upon hours in imaginative play – setting up house, playing restaurant, office or radio station. We staged two-person plays and two-person talent shows. It was just the two of us, but it was always enough.
We were never more than a day apart. Once you were invited to sleep over at a friend’s house and I invited myself over too. Even when doing our schoolwork at home, our desks were only feet apart.
We graduated from high school together. We took our GEDs at the same time. It was in the same year we voted in our first presidential election. We obtained our driving permits and then our licenses - together. We’ve even joked about a double wedding. We have shared a family, a faith, a car, clothes, hobbies, secrets, pain, struggles and victories.
Though so much alike, we were so different. You would spend hours fiddling with your arts and crafts, cooped up indoors. I relished being outside – exploring the woody areas and making forts. I would beg you to leave your beads, flowers and fabric behind and come out and play. I built with my Legos and raced my MicroMachines. You seemed more interested in dolls and Barbies.
You took your time, I insisted we hurry. You enjoyed the mornings and I thrived at night. Your clothes were always more stylish and I gravitated toward functional, though not always matching. You had dark, curly tresses and green eyes and I with dishwater brown waves and blue eyes. You’ve been taller than me for years, though I am older.
Because we looked so different, some questioned whether we were even sisters, while others, because we were always together, suspected we were twins.
We were nearly inseparable until 3 ½ years ago when you left for Bible school. You didn’t just go down the road or elsewhere in the state, but thousands of miles and three time zones away.
In the past few years, we have tried to remain close, as much as distance would allow, by e-mails, phone calls, voice messages and occasional visits.
In the early morning hours last Friday when I learned you had been taken to the emergency room – I was upset, very worried and feeling very helpless. The distance between us seemed magnified and insurmountable. Though I wished with all my heart I could be there for you, I could only trust that our Savior was ever close, ever near to you in your need.
So close in heart for all those years, yet now so torturously far away.
Perhaps it is true that one does not really value something or someone until they are in danger of losing it.
I was again reminded of how very precious you are to me and of all that I treasure and value about our relationship.
Time and distance, however, cannot dissolve the link God forged between us. It is stronger than sisterhood, stronger than friendship, it is the interweaving of the two. We are sisters and friends – an unbreakable, indissoluble double-strand bond.
Friends may come and go in each of our lives, but you will never be separated from me, my sister - perhaps, in distance, but never in heart.
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This is very well written. **THIS SPARKLES**
I loved your descriptions, especially of the first meeting. It took me back to watching my daughter when she first met her baby brother.