My Sister

One of the spelling words I was studying was "psychiatry". I was commenting on how it started with a "P" but sounded like it started with an "S". Dad looked up from reading the paper and said, "Yes, the 'P' is silent as in swimming". Think about it.

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Mom and dad were friends with another couple from the years they used to double-date before any of them were married. That friendship continued for the rest of their lives. The other couple had a daughter just a couple of months before I was born, and she and I played together when we were both in diapers, and often played together as kids. We started first grade together and graduated highschool together in our small town school. Two different years our families rented adjoining cabins on a lake for a week's vacation, and one year took a few days vacation traveling around southern Indiana together. Because of the closeness of our families she and I were at times linked romantically in the minds of our fellow students to the extent of placing a humorous story about our future marriage in the year book.

After we were both grown, married to other people and had kids, my wife and I were in business together with her and her husband for a while. The four of us went on business/holiday trips together and were around each other a lot. One day I was in her home, just the two of us, and I realized she felt a bit awkward about that. So we talked it out. I told her since I had three brothers and no sisters, she'd always been that sister. She was just too close over our whole lives for there to be a romantic interest to me. I said it would seem like incest. She was comfortable with that, and we've been brother and sister ever since.

We have rarely seen each other since I moved from Indiana in '79 and her and her husband have also moved out of that state, but we correspond on occasion. She always signs her notes "sis", and I sign "bro Richard".

I guess historically there is a poor track record for a man and woman just being friends, and it is therefore suspect in everyone's minds. It's a shame as I've known a lot of really super ladies I would have enjoyed as friends. I suppose it's possible in the anonymity a big city, but in a smaller community you know the gossip would be running rampant within the hour of your being seen together.

But I have a wonderful sister.