Clare Ansberry recently wrote a piece for The Wall Street Journal entitled “Siblings Matter More as We Grow Older.” It is the story of two sisters, living just outside Pittsburgh. I highly recommend reading the entirety of this wonderful article (you can do so by CLICKING HERE) but here is a passage of particular note:
“The sisters, 71 and 65, now live together in a house in Pittsburgh with their dog, Pippa, and two cats. Reconnecting later in life has given them an opportunity to understand the person each has become. “Mary is clever and funny and knows a hell of a lot,” says Noreen, traits she hadn’t fully appreciated in her younger sister. Mary has come to view Noreen as “amazingly smart, compassionate, and kind.”
“We always loved each other. Now, we like each other,” says Noreen.
Some families are easy. I just don’t know any of them. Most families are hard. But how many of the great accomplishments in your life were achieved easily? I’m betting none. Remember Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, when referring to baseball: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” More from the piece:
“Relationships with siblings are often our most enduring, lasting 70 to 80 years in some cases—far longer than those with parents, spouses and children. They change and evolve, often in hourglass fashion, with interactions concentrated in childhood, diminishing in the middle years, and expanding again in later years, when siblings may become closer than at any time since childhood.
“It’s not that we don’t care about one another in between, but we have other expectations—career, children,” says Ingrid Arnet Connidis, a professor of sociology at Ontario’s Western University and author of Family Ties and Aging.”
Family is finding compassion when there’s little to be found. It’s being supportive when your instincts are to criticize. And yes, it’s often about compromising for the greater good. If everything is done in love, in truth, then everything is done in the right spirit.
And we can’t let it take decades. These two sisters were lucky to be able to reconnect in their sixties and seventies. But how many family members never get that opportunity? We can’t let the trappings of existence – job, house, responsibilities, money – erase the time we’re given together on this earth. We only get so much of it and we never get any back.
So do what you can. Make an effort. I promise you one thing. You won’t regret it. As The Beatles said, “And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Art Gurwitz
Founder, Areena
Author
