My last column has run twice in the past. Once was the original post toward the end of the 1990's. And I ran it a second time when my brother was fighting in Iraq. Now retired, he was a Colonel and Black Hawk helicopter pilot who had three deployments in the Middle East. Now that my sons are grown as well, I continue to believe the foundation of survival begins with those early years sharing a bathroom and fighting over the front seat.
I was always a bit jealous of my friends who had sisters. Even though they would constantly get in squealing cat fights over clothes and shoes and makeup, it seemed so cool to have another girl around to understand the ins and outs of growing up female. With all boys, there were no cat fights over clothes, but outright brawls when the wrestling on the trampoline carried one hit too hard and an all-out fight ensued. After a while I reached a point where I just let them fight it out. As bad as the fight may be, to have Mom get involved was even worse. It seemed to chip at their practicing masculinity.
Growing up in a house balanced with a mom and dad, a brother, and me the sister, the arguments of shaved whiskers in the sink and the toilet lid constantly left up were common. Along with the makeup scattered across the counter with hairspray and nail polish. I always joked I had the mind of a right brain unorganized artist sharing space with a left-brain neat freak who literally stacked his clothes in individual piles in his bedroom. But the bathroom was Switzerland and a messy boundary it remained.
Once I got married and had children of my own, with all sons in the house the bathroom was not such a line of contention but one of total toxicity to enter at your own risk. One would not have to lower the toilet seat; they would simply go sliding right off it. And the tub had a constant faint semblance of an oily stained ring of dirt, sunscreen, and bug spray after returning from the ball field. A bathroom used by four growing boys earned its own badge of honor. And the mom cleaning it did as well.
Regardless of gender, I stand on the belief that siblings simply help mold us into more well-rounded people. And living in the south throughout my life cousins often fell into this role as well. The branches of extended family remain very close on the family tree. Siblings and cousins seem to share not only bedrooms and relatives, but also a generational undertone that goes unspoken. We had our turn slipping out and making mud pies in our Easter dresses before church and washing Wendy's hair with bath oil instead of shampoo just before her grandparents from New Orleans came to get her.
This past weekend my sons and their wives along with me and Clay were sent running around the house and yard in horror when Liam and Daniel. ages 3 and 4, went missing. I kept hearing faint giggles until I discovered them in Clay's walk-in closet playing hide and seek from us without telling us there was a game going on.
My mind quickly shot back to a similar story at my grandma's house in Alabama when I was little. But I believe the story was that Patty had locked me in Grandma's closet because I wouldn't stop talking. Once again, a reason I am likely claustrophobic to this day.
Everyone should indeed have a sibling to wage the ups and downs of growing up, and cousins quickly fall right in line as Grandmas and Papas shake their heads and laugh at the rites of passage whipping around once again.
