The “hello”s are invariably great, but the “good bye”s are always bittersweet.
Last night I once again bade farewell to my sister. The goodbye spanned well over half an hour and two apartments. Hugs. Kisses. A few tears.
Many times these partings are made easier by the glimmer of the next simcha on the horizon. Boruch Hashem, my sister and I have made 7 bar mitzvahs and 5 weddings between the two of us and we have had the zechus of sharing the majority of these precious moments together with each other and our growing families.
But this time, there are no more little boys awaiting their call to manhood and at present, no young adult entering “the Parsha”. There will be simchas in the near future iy”H, but not the kind we travel half a world away to share. When will we next see each other? I have no doubt that we will, but the uncertainty of it all is unsettling.
What am I missing most because we live so far apart? As usual with me, it is the little things. I like to think that if we lived nearby, we would gather the whole brood together once a month (Shabbos Mevorchim Rosh Chodesh perhaps?), alternating homes, for a rousing Friday night meal with children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles and cousins. It never ceases to amaze me that even though the members of our family are separated by an ocean, as soon as we are reunited it seems as if we’ve always been together, laughing, teasing, sharing family ‘in-jokes’ and picking up right where we last left off. Of course, cheap telephone rates and the internet have gone a long way to making these distances practically negligible, but I like to think that we share a sort of genetic magnetism in our blood that draws us closer and connects us as well. I hope to never lose that.
So if you have a sister living nearby, call her up today and tell her you want to arrange a Friday night family dinner together. I sure wish I could…..
2 comments:
If your hubby got you that frying pan as a surprise this augurs very well for the next decades of married life. Sounds like he's learned that husband lesson--get her what she wants and forget about what the neighbors will say.
And yeah, the goodbyes don't feel good. My sister isn't on another continent, but Long Island to SI sometimes might as well be, what with all the obligations we both have. We've been making it a point to schedule some time together on our to do lists, 'cuz it's at least as important as the other things on the list.
Oh wow. This post almost made me cry. I can't believe I am doing this.
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