Grant County Journal
“Hey Soul Sisters…I miss ya!”
Written by Janet Warren
September 22, 2011
Sometimes sisters get a bad rap. In Greek Mythology, the Moirai, otherwise known as The Fates, were born to Zeus, the God of Fate, and Themis, the Goddess of Necessity. They are most often depicted as three hags who control every person’s destiny through a thin thread attached at birth. Clotho spins the threads of life, Lachesis allots the length of the yarn, and Atropos does the final cut. Snip, snip, you die.
Disney’s version of Cinderella isn’t anywhere near as graphic as the Grimms Brother’s version. The Halloween décor has been for sale at Wal-Mart for months, so I’ll give you a taste of the macabre. The stepsisters in the Grimms’ version cut off pieces of their feet to get them to fit in the glass slippers in order to trick the prince. The prince is alerted by birds who are attracted by the blood and peck out the eyes of the wicked stepsisters. They are forced to live out their lives as blind beggars while Cinderella marries the prince and lives happily ever after.
How about the spinster sisters, Martha and Abby Brewster, in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)? They are two kind, sweet women who go about doing good deeds by killing lonely old men to put them out of their misery. “For a gallon of elderberry wine, I take one teaspoon full of arsenic, then add half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide,” Martha explains. She and Abby discovered it tastes much better in elderberry wine than in tea.
As I said, some sisters get a bad rap. But not my sisters.
My sisters make me laugh. And I’m not talking ha ha, I’m talking rolling on the floor, trying not to pee my pants kind of laughing. When we are all together, our children have to brace themselves to see a side of their mothers not often seen. It wasn’t always that way—in fact I would say my sisters and I weren’t particularly close while we were growing up.
My friend, Sandra’s younger sister always borrowed her clothes and stretched out the pants (remember the polyester pant era?)
My niece Brittany’s identical twin, at age four, felt the pain when Brittany broke her arm even though they weren’t together. They still have that kind of connection. I wonder if identical twins have less sibling rivalry than other siblings—that would be an interesting topic to research.
I was seven years younger than my sister Diane and followed her around relentlessly, even wanting to sleep with her. She says I made her pre-teen years hellish. I don’t remember that, and don’t believe it. Moi?
I do, however, remember I was really mean to my sister Sara, three years my junior. When we had ice cream, I would eat mine down to the cone and then force her to trade with me since she still had half of hers. She used the word “probably” a lot. I would mock her every chance I got—“probably, probably, probably,” I taunted. She recently wrote this: “Sisters are there for each other, they play tag team on a moment's notice when other family members are in need, they are there to laugh with, cry with, get through the difficult times together, rejoice in the good times. Sisters are a gift." I think Sara has forgiven me.
I can hear it now from some Ephrata sisters: “Sure you get along with your sisters. You don’t have to live with them in the same small town.” You may be right. My sisters are spread out across the country…Diane is in New Jersey, Sara in Colorado, Valene in Nevada, and here I am in Washington. We’ve never lived close to each other as adults. I’d like to think we would enjoy each other as much as we do now if we all lived in close proximity. But I may never know the answer to that. What I do know is that having a sister changes you whether it is for better or worse.
In my “Leave it to Beaver” upbringing, I never faced many of the horrific things sisters who grew up in abusive families dealt with. I have spoken to sisters who have lived through unimaginable things and many of them form exceptionally strong bonds, especially when they have had to depend on each other to survive emotionally. Those bonds formed while in the belly of the whale cannot be broken.
“Sibling relationships--and 80 percent of Americans have at least one--outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust. Asked to describe them, more than a few people stammer and hesitate, tripped up by memory and sudden bursts of unexpected emotion.” ~Erica E. Goode, "The Secret World of Siblings," U.S. News & World Report, 10 January 1994
By the time you read this column, the four Fullenwider sisters will be together in Nevada, along with our brother Dave, who through a cruel twist of fate is forced to spend his life sandwiched between two sisters on either side. We’re coming together to observe and make some serious decisions about our mother, but I’m pretty sure we’ll wedge in some fits of laughter.
