Dear Jill,
First, let me say, I love you. Our family isn’t one for expressing our feelings out loud, unless it’s anger, so I wanted to change that. I love you. I have always loved you. You are my older sister and I respect you.
We haven’t talked for a very long time. We don’t write each other, we don’t phone each other and I find that terribly sad. Some how we grew apart and I wish I could change that. I’m not sure how though. Maybe you have some ideas?
There are lots of days I miss you so much, in fact most days. I’ve tried emailing you, through Facebook, but get no response. I used to call you and leave messages, but didn’t get phone calls back. So I guess I gave up. I’m kind of ashamed that I gave up, but the non-responses hurt me and I was tired of being hurt.
I know you have a full, active life. You are married and have kids to raise, even if those kids aren’t yours. That’s one of the many things I am so proud of about you, your caring and loving heart. Especially with kids. You were always more than ready to step up and help kids. You fostered kids for a lot of years, hard to place kids, the kids that needed a loving home desperately. You even adopted 3 of those foster kids. Now, at this stage of your life you should be living it easy, your adopted kids are all grown and off on their own now. Yet there you are raising two beautiful little girls who needed you. That’s how you are though, a good-hearted soul.
You take care of mom too now that she’s 85 and needs some help. Well, let me amend that, you take care of mom as much as mom will let you. She is a very strong, independent woman, I’m sure that’s where we get it from. You seem to always be taking care of someone, but that’s how your nature is and it suits you.
I remember the two times I was ever hospitalized you were the one with me through it all. You visited me, you comforted me when I was scared and hurting. No one else in the family ever came to see me in the hospital, but you were there every day. That first time you even let me stay with you for a while, because I wasn’t supposed to stay alone, doctor’s orders. You had a full house then, small kids and a husband to take care of, but you never hesitated in letting me stay with you for a couple of weeks. I have never forgotten that. The second time I called you and told you I think I needed to go to the hospital when I had a terrible gall bladder attack. You dropped everything and took me and stayed with me throughout my emergency visit and the next day through my surgery. Again, the only family that visited me. I was much less terrified because you were there. I don’t know if I ever thanked you for that. If not, thank you sister dear.
I remember growing up we used to have such fun. Sure, we had our fights too, what siblings don’t? We shared a bedroom, till you got married and moved into your own home. That took a lot of compromise and adjusting on both our parts, sharing a room, but we did it.
You were the one Mom always told me to be more like. More studious, more helpful, more whatever. I was never like you though. We are light years apart in personalities, yet you were always the one I felt the closest too. I was the one that had a quick temper, you took forever to get mad and then all you did was cry, which made you more angry. I was the bad girl, skipped school, ran with a crowd of unruly girls, smoked. At least I never drank lol. I think we both never drank because we saw too much of it growing up.
You were the one that always dreamed of being married and having a large family. I never saw myself as married and from the beginning I never wanted kids. You babysat when you were old enough to. I buried my head in a book and kept away from most kids. You had no interest in cooking, I have cooked since an early age and have always loved it.
So many differences, yet we always got along and damn it I miss that. I miss you.
When we were kids we comforted each other through the bad times. We laughed at stupid things. We argued over silliness. But we were always close.
I still have the small scar between my eyebrows where your fingernail dug in during one our childhood fights. I always smile when I see it. I still can’t stand anyone touching my neck with their hands because of the time I was standing in front of mom and dad’s bedroom door, not knowing you were hiding in there. You silently opened the door and scared the crap out of me when you circled my neck with your hands. I remember I was so scared all I could do was cry. At first you laughed till you saw how upset I was. Then you couldn’t apologize enough. You always felt bad afterwards for scaring me so much.
Maybe it is my fault we drifted so far apart. I’m sure it was. I moved away from home many years ago, had my own life to live, had my own problems to deal with. I moved around a lot during my years away. You moved to Townsend and there you stayed. I married and you were there for the first one. You were there again when I divorced. By the time I remarried problems arose between us and since then things have not gotten better. I regret that. I truly do.
So this letter is for you Jill, my dear sister, my only sister. You may never get a chance to read it. But it will be here, on the internet, floating around. So maybe one day you can capture it, read it and know how much your little sister loves you and wishes only the best for you, as you deserve only the best.
Love Always,
Jackie
