Gratitude Day #6
Today I am grateful for my three sisters, aka "The Sisterhood".
They are fine, fine women. And, we are so much fun!
They were 16, 19, and 21 when I was born. It wouldn't be long before they would be raising their own families.
I grew up alone.
But, the years have melded together the older we have become. We have cooked together, celebrated holidays, and gone on genealogy trips. We fuss with each other, we hold each other, and are grateful beyond measure that we are all still around.
They continued on with my mother's teachings on behaving with class and dignity. They are women. Their dress and behavior is good. Their language is good. They are ladies. And, they would expect nothing less of me.
My own sisters are my link to the older generation that I connect with. They knew many relatives that I was never able to meet. It was while we were on a recent research trip that I learned that they, along with my parents had made a trip back to Kentucky from their home in West Virginia. The purpose was to visit my dad's grandfather, who laid on a cot in the back of a kitchen in his daughter's house.
Sister Betty became bored, and decided to go to the back yard and be with the animals. While standing there looking at a goat, it reached through the fence, grabbed hold of her dress, began eating it, and jerked it off of her.
She wasn't very old, and didn't have the presence of mind to step back. All she had on was a slip, and that's what she had to wear back to West Virginia.
Sister Jean told me how difficult it was to stand and iron her nurse's uniforms each night when her feet were just killing her. She also remembers going up on the hill to the "ho titty bum bum hole", dancing around it and singing at the top of their lungs, and eating mustard and sugar sandwiches. (I have no idea what kind of a hole that it.)
Fern told me of living in West Virginia in a house that was up on a hill. (i just saw it a couple of years ago.) Across the valley was the hospital, where she could practically look into the operating rooms from where their house stood. It fueled her desire to become a nurse.
Though I didn't grow up with my sisters, I have grown older with them. The years have sort of melded together. They're all in their eighties now, except for Betty. She soon will be. But, we all have good minds and memories, and our health is relatively good. I try to look out for them when I need to, for they have done that with me through my life.
I always wondered why I had to be born so much later than them. I think I now know why. And, I'm grateful they have been part of my life all of my life.
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