When’s the last time you said, “I love you,” to your siblings?
Not recently, would be my answer. It’s sad.
It’s amazing, when you think about it. I spent the first 18 years of my life sharing a bedroom with my brother, Paul, and all that goes along with that.
In the next room, my two sisters, Lori and Kathy, doubled up. We four siblings spent all those years together in our family home in Endwell, N.Y.
I moved out of that house 40 years ago, returning for nearly a year after I graduated from college because my mom was dying of cancer.
I’ve had a smorgasbord of experiences since then, including moving out to Los Angeles, marrying, moving back east to live in Central New York and then moving to the Catskills. During that time, my marriage resulted in a daughter and a son, who are my pride and joy.
My brother married, but is currently divorced and living in Connecticut. My two sisters are married and both are still living a short distance from the old homestead, in Endicott.
We talk, but truth be told we’re not as close to each other as I’d like.
Family, friends and other circumstances keep getting in the way. Sure, we call each other occasionally – particularly when there’s a death or sickness in the family.
But talking on the phone is not the same as actually spending time together.
We have a family reunion picnic each summer, but it’s been years since all four of us attended. Work and other personal things keep getting in the way.
This past summer, I tried something a little different. I kept saying to my brother that we needed to get together and I finally set something up. It was a bass fishing/rafting trip down the Delaware River during the middle of the week.
We both took a day off from work and each had to drive about 3 ½ hours to rendezvous on the Delaware.
It was a warm, picture-perfect day – swimsuit weather. We floated for about five hours, catching numerous bass and soaking in the scenery, which included soaring bald eagles and a couple of deer taking a drink of water along the river’s edge.
And we talked. Fishing poles and beers in hand, the day flew by.
At the trip’s end, I cleaned 8 bass we had caught and sent Paul home with the fillets. Later, he called me and said he fixed them for dinner that night and gobbled every single one down.
That made me smile. That was a lot of fish to eat at one sitting.
Recently, while talking with him on the phone, we reminisced about the trip and Paul said it “was one of the highlights of my year.”
That made me pause – and got me thinking.
Why is it my brother and I don’t get together more? On top of that, the same question applies to my two sisters, who both are only about an hour’s ride away.
Sure, I can blame them. But will that get me anywhere?
If I want a closer relationship with my siblings, I have to take steps to make it happen. We’re all currently empty nesters, except my sister Kathy, whose youngest son is still living at home while he attends college.
As I’ve written before on this blog, there’s a note card on my bathroom mirror that I put up there eight years ago to serve as an incentive for the changes I felt I needed to make in middle age.
It reads: “It won’t happen unless I do it.”
Bottom line, I’ve got to try in the coming year to strengthen the relationships with my siblings – all three of them.
And above all, they need to know that I appreciate and love them all dearly.
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