Instasister!

I remember specifically when I first heard. I was 14 years old and coming up from my basement bedroom (I loved my basement bedrooms, sneaking in and out while parents slept, having a waterbed and sneaking people in while my parents slept) and my mother and sister were talking about my two other sisters that lived in Halifax.

Two other sisters?  What the heck are you talking about, I asked, secret pack of smokes in my sock, poking my calf muscle.

Hud, who will never have a bedroom basement or a sister, eating a roasted Jerusalem artichoke at the Brickworks market on Saturday.

It was realized that, for whatever reason, I was never told about my father’s first wife, prior to my mother, and him having fathered two daughters by the time he was 21. It was simply assumed that either my dad, my mother or even my full sister would have offered this delectable sibling nugget at some point in my fresh and juicy adolescence.

It was four years after I met Leslie, the younger of the two new sisters for the first time. I was looking down from my kitchen window as she stepped out of the car and I was pretty freaked out. Leslie looks like me more than any of my other sisters, and this was pretty unsettling to an 18 year old living in Mississauga townhouse by myself (I left home early, long story).

But after awkward hugs and some stuttered conversation, the ice cracked and we all soaked in the familiar wry, dark humour that all of my family shares. It was instasister!

The same thing happened when I met Tracey a few years after that. Brief uncomfortable silence, followed by a wash of yuks and giggles and that was that.  Another instasister!

I have a very strong relationship with my full sister Michele. I admire and love the hell out of her and the very substantial life she has carved out over the years. We have the luxury of spending the majority of the summer weekends with each other up north, creating new, inside jokes and forgetting wine-soaked conversations overnight. Her place in my heart is overwhelmingly secure.

The connection with my two other sisters is hindered a bit by geography, money and effort, on all our parts. Fact is, I have only seen either of them a handful of times. But when I do, I feel the roots run a bit deeper, the foundation of my life spreads a bit more knowing I have these two strong, wonderfully interesting women as my blood relatives.

Here is Tracey and I walking down the path to the Brickworks market.  She stayed with us this past weekend and we had a great time.