My sisters and I have not always been close.
Debra is two years younger than me, so growing up was often fraught with conflict. (Mostly at my instigation, I will now admit!)
Dawn is almost ten years younger than me and was still a child when I left home.
While we have grown closer as the years have passed, we are now in our golden age of sisterhood. Why? Because suddenly we are all at the same stage of life—empty nesters—while also living in the same location.
The location thing is a big deal. Dawn, her husband, and their boys lived in the Middle East for 20 years, returning to the States in 2020 for their boys to complete high school and college. For the first time in all our married lives, my sisters and I live no more than 15 minutes from one another. In fact, Dawn and Debra have been teaching these last few years at the small Christian school in our town, the one all of our children graduated from! And their classrooms were across the hall from one another!
Debra and I have been in the empty nest stage together for a few years, and she joined me in the grandparents club last May. But Dawn’s youngest just graduated from high school and will be off to college in the fall, putting us all at the same life stage for the first time. The only real difference now is that Dawn is still teaching school while Debra retired in May.
While Dawn is still working, Debra and I will embark on a new season of time together, including a trip this fall to Chicago where we will attend the Christy Award dinner and the JustRead Rendezvous the day after! We look forward to spending time together and connecting with some of our favorite authors.
I haven’t always thought of my sisters as a gift but more and more I see how precious a gift they are. I couldn’t ask for two better encouragers, two more godly women to speak into my life and allow me to speak into theirs.
And this post is sparked by the fact that today is our youngest sister’s birthday! Happy birthday, Dawn!
Do you have sisters? Are you close?