Sisters

Sometimes I have memories of playing happily with my two younger sisters. Most of our play consisted of games we made up. We never had many toys but we did have our imaginations. The two homes we lived in as children had large yards which extended into wooded areas owned by us or by some unknown stranger. We liked to explore these woods and never worried about ownership.

On those few days when we stayed inside, we played with favorite toys received over the years. Mine were a ballerina doll with a pink tutu and slippers, a baby doll that smelled wonderful, paper dolls of characters from one of Gordon MacRae's musicals, and the Sears and Roebucks catalog from which we cut out our own paper dolls. My sisters and I usually received identical gifts at Christmas so we each had a baby doll, but only I had the ballerina doll and the Gordon MacRae paper dolls. I'm sure my sisters also had favorite toys they played with but I don't remember. I was happy with my toys.

As we got older our interests changed. I spent about half of my time by myself reading; my youngest sister started playing more with our younger brother; and my younger sister seemed to spend a lot of time daydreaming. When she wasn't daydreaming, she used to draw and write poetry. We still spent time together playing but our school activities made us realize that we were different.

I was always the first family member in each class because of my age, and usually when my sister came along, the teachers would call her by my name, and talk about when I was in their classes. I know they would compare her to me and expect her to be just like me. I can't imagine how she felt because, although I had an older sister, she was seven years older and we never even attended the same schools. I can imagine, though, how I would have felt if I had always been compared to an older sister who was there first.

Although close for awhile when we finished school, my younger sister and I have drifted apart again. We live in different states and don't see each other much. We've tried to keep in touch but I prefer email and my sister prefers telephones and regular mail. We lead very different lives, and have no friends in common. Even though she told me once that she'd gotten over her hatred of my big-sister attitude, I fear that the resentment is still there. We've been communicating recently by email about a serious issue concerning another family member, and every time I disagree with one of her suggestions, she reacts badly. It's gotten to the point where I feel I need to step away from the discussion, and give her time to see me once again as just a sister and not the bossy, big sister she often hated.

Nursing Homes

When I was still in school, my maternal grandfather came to live with us. My father had a shed off the kitchen made into a bed/sitting room for him and he moved in. Everything went well for several years, but while I was in college, he started having some physical problems, mainly, moving around easily. He would get up during the night to use the bathroom, lose his balance and fall. My mother's bedroom wasn't far away and he would call for her to come help him. He also had started having memory problems and didn't always know where he was. She was working during the day and between worrying about him while she was at work and losing sleep at night, she realized she needed to make a decision about how to  care for him. Her five brothers and sisters told her to put him in a nursing home and they would help pay for it. She found a place not far from where we lived and he moved in. He was put in a room with another old man, and seemed to be comfortable.

My mother would visit him as often as she could and he would tell her he wanted to come home. This upset her, and caused her to worry about whether she had done the right thing. Then, after a few weeks, she got a call from the nursing home telling her that my grandfather had tried to escape. He had told his roommate that he was getting out of that place, and encouraged him to come along. The two of them had almost made it out of the building before being caught. My mother called her siblings and told them she was bringing him home, and they had better help her make a decision about what to do. He was never sent back to that home, and they found other arrangements for him, not necessarily better, but at least safer.

I often chuckle whenever I picture my 90+ grandfather making a break for it with his feeble roommate and I feel proud of him, and also sad, but I can't help wondering why we don't have better alternatives for our aging relatives.