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| Bathing Beauties out on Calves Island- always together |
My sisters and I don't see each other daily. A lives in Peabody, B & E in Port Chester, but we all talk on a daily basis (obsessively, thank you BBM and now iChat). We are woven together in a tight tapestry that will never be torn (Sorry, parody of Merida was just on Robot Chicken). Seriously though, my sisters are my heart and soul. They are my "people" (Grey's reference). They are my best, my everything.
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| The Furano Family Mary, Lou, Rocky, Katherine, Anne Grandpa and Grandma Furano |
My grandmother's family was parallel to ours. There were four daughters and a son. We are also four daughters and a son. Paulie may be a boy, but he is really our 5th sister (meaning that he's just as close to us girls)(not that he is transgender)(although if he was he'd be a whole lot cooler)(nah, he's pretty cool). Our whole live, my sisters and I saw these 4 women, the matriarchs of the family, totally echoing our own lives. It was trippy, and looking back, I'm realizing just how much of an influence they had on us. Which one am I? we would ask each other, trying to fit our personalities to theirs. (this little game was actually played on Fourth of July of this year, while drinking watermelon mojitos, with my grandmother herself).
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| The LaBellas Amie, Paulie, Lyzz, Jess, Becky Donna & Paul |
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| At my grandmother's 85th birthday, only 3 of us and 3 of them were present, so we jumped at what would prove to be the last opportunity to live out this fantasy of how we were so alike! |
Every family party, THE AUNTS had to be invited. You could see them sitting together in a shady place, chatting, drinking wine, a unit of sisterhood and familiarity. At every gathering, there was a photo taken of the four of them together: Easter, Christmas Eve, Labor Day, out on Captain's Island, New Year's Eve Parties. Their children were close, they grew up together, went to school together, partied together, loved each other.Then their grandchildren continued the traditions. Our family has done a pretty damn good job keeping up the sister's traditions: Christmas Eve dinner, Easter Breakfast, Labor Day.
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| Easter |
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| Christmas Eve, I presume |
Flash forward to life with my sisters. The life we lived together was so special. Our parents loved us all, and instilled in us extreme family values. We are all pretty close in age. I was 20 months old when Amie came, and almost 4 when Becky arrived. I was a grown up of 7 when Lyzz came, and an old lady of 14 when Paulie was born. We went through the typical adolescent fights, became close to each other, became estranged a year later. College came and went, people moved out, got married, moved far away, babies were born, graduate school, more marriages, houses bought, jobs taken and quit and promotions and raises and so on and so forth. And at the end of the rapid fire passing of lifetimes, we have come out better, closer, more honest with each other. It is apparent that we are vital parts of each other's lives. And what's really cool? We really like each other. We have a lot in common. The 4 of us couldn't be more different from each other, but pieces of me match pieces of them, and that makes it even better. We never run out of things to talk about, and when we are together, the whole world ceases to exist.
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| Heart and Soul |
What I'm getting at here, struggling to say, really, after an emotionally draining couple of days of wakes and funerals and tears and "I'm sorry"s and "We need to stop meeting like this", is that I adore my sisters. I love them. I live for them. And it hurts my stomach to ever imagine losing one of them.
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| Best Sisters |
Grandma and Aunt Lou were so close. Grandma would drive to her house every single morning before work for tea. She would stop there at night. They would go out to dinner. They went to Italy together. She told her sister everything. She was always there for her, after grandpa, after Tommy. And now she's gone.
I can see how heartbroken my grandmother is, and it is killing me. Because I can imagine the pain, the panic, the anxiety, of not picking up the phone and calling Becky to tell her something I was worried about with Juliet, or calling Amie for advice on healthy diets and to pick her brain about career decisions, or texting Lyzz while we are both taking baths and talking about the amazing new books we are reading, or the silly article that we read and had to vent about.
As I was sitting with my grandmother today at the funeral home, a close member of her family (I will not divulge names or relationships but I will say that it is NOT a surprise) was being super dramatic, wailing and crying, attention seeking from all the well wishers. "We were so close! We laughed all the time! What will I do without her." I clenched my grandmother's hand and whispered "Is this making it all that much harder?" and she grimly said "Everything she says is a lie."
And all I can think of tonight is my poor grandmother, who's first thought was almost definitely "Wait til I tell Lou about this...she'll get a kick out of hearing this" and the sick realization that will follow when she remembers....she can't.
