I am thankful for my sisters.
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| My mother and father with my oldest sister. |
At the end of August was the first anniversary of my mother's death. It was also my sister's birthday. My mother died on the same date that she gave birth to her first child many years earlier. That may or may not mean something depending on how you feel about the cosmic connection of things. I feel like it was a coincidence. Maybe.
What I do know is I didn't want my sister's birthday to forever be overshadowed with the sorrowful day of our mother's passing. So I told her to start thinking ahead on how she wanted to celebrate. We couldn't ignore our mother's passing but that day needed to have more to it than the sorrow we were feeling.
My sister thought about it for a while and came up with the following. We should each say a prayer of thanksgiving for our mother's life and how well she lived it. And then have a hot dog with everything on it to celebrate my sister's birthday. So amid the tears, we each said a prayer of thanksgiving for our mother and then had a really good hot dog. Because of the distance between us, we weren't actually able to be together for this experience but we shared pictures of our special meal, some of them complete with birthday candles. We had a fun time seeing what each of us chose to make our perfect hot dog and wishing my sister happy birthday.
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| Here are all four of us, ten years after the above picture. |
So for shared experiences with my sisters, I am thankful.
The rest of the story:
I am not sharing the picture of the hot dog I had because I put candles on it with my sister's age. She may not want me to share that for 50+ various reasons.
Also, sharing common things from a distance is something my sisters and I have started to do. On my father's birthday, we have ice cream to remember him because that was something he loved. We all share what we did whether it was a trip to the Dairy Queen or a big bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce at home.
I have only one sister but she is person my age who has known me the longest. I understand the blessing you get from a sister.
ReplyDeleteThe experiences that made you who you are is something that a sister understands. I am glad that you have your sister now as you both go this difficult time. I know I was very glad to have my sisters around the last 10 years as we went through similar situations with both my mother and father.
DeleteWhat a beautiful thing to do! Acknowledging the pain of loss as well as the joys in life. That was a brilliant idea. I like the thought of ice cream on your dad's birthday, as well. During our family Christmas celebration the first year without my father, my mom spoke a few words and lit a candle. We had purposely planned to celebrate in a different place from where we had been going--it's good to honor those who have gone before us as well as noting that life goes on and there are moments to salute in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think the common advice is to replace old traditions with new ones when the old ones become associated with a sad event. I think that's what your family did and my family is doing in various versions. We are still deciding what we want to do for my mother's birthday like we do for my father's birthday. It was too soon after her death last year to figure out anything, but I think we will do something this year. Right now, I'm thinking about a chocolate bar. We'll see.
DeleteThis is wonderful, live and learn. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteDoing these small things "together" has made it a fun and positive way to remember our parents and celebrate their lives and our own as well. After a lot of years of tension, this has been a fun way to start living again.
DeleteWhat a unique idea in remembering your mother and your sister's birthday.
ReplyDeleteI think it may become a tradition.
DeleteWhat a wonderful way to remember your mother's death anniversary and celebrate your sister's birthday! Thank you for sharing it with us and happy (belated) birthday to your sister!
ReplyDeleteI'll send belated birthday wishes along to my sister and tell her that my blog friends like the idea she came up to celebrate it.
DeleteThis really touched my heart as a nice way to celebrate two lives, even from a distance and gave me ideas. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI think one reason this works for us is that we aren't trying to make a big deal out of anything whether it is waiting to do something until we are all together or to do something fancy. A simple bowl of ice cream or a hot dog and sharing the experience through a phone call or an email or a picture is easy to do and has been meaningful for us. I hope you can get satisfaction from something similar.
DeleteWhat a touching post and I did like your idea of sharing your memories across the miles in a simple way. The photograph of you as children all is so beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe date caught my attention as Sept. 8th was my mother’s birthday . My father died four years later but on Sept 4th and my parents in law died 10 years apart but on Sept 8th and 6th.
September must be a hard month for you as you remember your loved ones.
DeleteThe picture of my sisters and me was one my father took when he was trying to get something for a Christmas card. There were several other ones before he could get us all looking at the camera at the same time.
Beautiful pictures and beautiful memories. Am I missing where you said which one was you?
ReplyDeleteYou're not missing it. While I share pictures here, I don't usually identify much for general security reasons. Also, I have permission from my sisters to post their pictures but not to identify them.
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