Goodness what a horrible photo!
You can hardly see their faces... but these are my two eldest sisters.
The sane, not horrible ones.
Irony here... the one with the dark hair is the oldest.
The one with hair more silver than my own is second oldest in my family.
Ten and eight years my seniors.
Our father, who lives in DPH,
turns 87 on Saturday.
My sisters and their husbands stopped here to have
breakfast with us on their way up to celebrate with Grump Pa.
Neither had been able to attend our wedding,
so this was their introduction to the man.
Cinderella, silver hair was supposed to go on an anniversary
trip paid for months prior to our invitation.
However life interjected a series of events that kept that from happening.
While I thought she was lounging on a beautiful beach...
their tree was blown down by a freak tornado
and her father-in-law died suddenly.
Our wedding day was his funeral day.
Meanwhile, Duffy, dark hair and husband Bull
were attending a reunion where no one showed up that they could recall knowing.
Isn't that how life goes?
Such was the conversation this morning as we chatted and ate.
Nothing much to talk about really.
A few funny old family stories and swapping pics of the grand kids.
But it was wonderful to see them.
I was glad to have "normal" family members to introduce to the man
vs the not so normal Grump Pa and Medusa.
The thing that stuck me immediately was how much my sisters
looked like other family women that I thought of as
elderly.
Ha!
Duffy looks like Auntie J and Cinderella looks like the grandmother
we called only "Gertrude".
It also confirmed my suspicion that Bear sounds
very much like Duffy when she speaks...
and proved to the man that both Cinderella and I snort when we laugh.
And that we both laugh a lot.
The Grump used to call us "the jolly girls".
Yeah... we didn't care for that much.
It was fun and strange and sweet
to see them all.
How much we have all changed over the years.
How different but essentially the same.
I wished that I had more time to visit,
but at the same time welcomed being home again.
A morning of contradiction.
When I hugged Cinderella...
she whispered in my ear...
"I am so glad to see you happy."
I came home and said good night to the man
and wandered out here to post.
I thought about her parting words
and the intensity with which they were said.
I guess I hadn't fooled anyone all those years
that I was not happy.
How wonderful that they can see now that I am.
One point of conversation came up...
the Duck game tonight against Cal Bears.
The man asked who they would be rooting for...
Cal Bears!
I had to laugh.
We were raised Californians
and it is where they all still live.
We'll be rooting against them of course.
=:]
Brother-in-laws paying their bills.
Sweet!
