Making Ends Meet

I received a card in the mail yesterday from my sister. We haven't had a meaningful conversation since our father's funeral. It has been two years. It was a lovely card with a picture of a Dalmatian on the front.

I had a Dalmatian named Samantha who was a beautiful highly energetic sidekick of mine for 18 years. Stephanie, my sister, was with me when I drove out to the farm to pick her from the litter. Did you know Dalmatians are born without spots? They are white and pink with very little hair and only a shadow where the black spots will eventually come through. I always imagined the hair was what was black, but the marks are embedded on the skin.

Stephanie and I were very close back then as we were for most of our childhood. I had just moved in with my future husband and she was in the process of wedding plans of her own to a man that I introduced her to. I was her maid of honor.

She wrote that she saw the card while shopping and thought it looked just like Samantha. It made her think of me. She asked how we were doing and hoped we were staying warm. It felt like an olive branch, but one that you might find in February, still in winter hibernation.

The funny thing is Samantha was a gift for my future husband. I never had a dog, or really wanted one, but he did and so I pushed my desires aside to please him. He was thrilled but wasn't the least bit interested in the commitment and effort required to care for the dog, only the fun and cute aspects of having her. So she became my dog. She became my dear friend and loyal companion all through the divorce and it's aftermath. She never left my side.

I find it interesting that this is the card that prompted Stephanie to reach out to me. Because, unlike Samantha, she did leave my side. I don't blame her, I wasn't very good at asking for help and my life did became pretty messy. And I guess I was supposed to be her protector as her older sister. She was after all the baby.

Did you know Dalmatians continue to grow spots throughout their lifetime. Maybe if she lived to 100 she would have turned from white to pure black.

So we had a few arguments, a few more disagreements and finally drifted apart. But her card reminded me of who we were back then; connected. Can we from our place of distance ever make our ends meet once again? Should we even try? I am 50, which means that my sister and I who had shared a room together for 16 years have now lived apart longer then we ever lived together. The people in that old relationship no longer exist. They are but a memory.

It's a bit of a shock, that. For I still believe I know my sister better than anyone in the world. But I don't know her at all. And she doesn't know me. And maybe that's okay.