Hi Sister

Sometimes, around 3 or 4:00 in the afternoon, my sister and I have a cup of coffee together.  Over gmail chat. She's in New York City and I'm here in suburban world, so a computerized cup of coffee is the best we can do.  If things were different, that's to say that if she lived here, I would like to think that having a cup of coffee together would be a regular occurrence. 

Many years ago, when Molly and I were growing up, we shared a bedroom.  As the older sister, I hated it.  And loved it.  She was a fun little sister, cute, silly, gullible.  Once, when I was mad at her, I put tape across our room and told her she had the half with the window and I got the half with the door.  She stood at that tape-line and cried for over an hour.  When I was nine and she was five we moved to Bloomington, IL and into a house where all three of us kids had our own rooms.  For the first couple of weeks she slept in mine.

Molly is just enough younger than me to have been a true little sister.  The kind of little sister who yelled things like, "Sara loooooooves Joel." when the boy I liked happened to call.  She and my brother spent hours making silly movies in our basement and ganging up on me for siding with my parents when we were deciding where to go for dinner.  And then, one day, she grew up.  As we got older, and became closer, we started talking about boys, relationships, friends.  It took me a long time to take her advice seriously.  As she would be talking to me, and usually giving me very good, insightful input, all I could see was a little seven-year-old girl blabbing on and on about her made up language or singing one of her silly songs (pizza pizza patio / how do you know it?).

Seven years ago she moved from Chicago to the Big Apple.  Her life is so different than mine - acting, roommates (although now she lives on her own, which is equally different than my living situation), taking the subway, working in Manhattan.  She lives in Astoria.  The last time I was out to visit her I helped her move into her new place, a cute basement apartment with a sweet, if not over-protective, landlord. 

Eventually I was able to see that she's not a little girl.  But she is my sister.  She knows me better than just about anyone else on this planet.  She might be worlds away from husbands and changing poopy diapers, but she has helped me through trying times and laughed with me through the joyful ones.  She's been here for the birth of all three of my kids.  She calls me Suki (she's the only one who's allowed) and tells me when I have too much mascara on or when my butt looks really good in my jeans.

When I was pregnant with Lily, but didn't yet know it was Lily, I would think about having another boy or another girl.  I know that my brother has always wished that he had a brother, and there was a part of me that wanted that for Max.  But when it came down to it, I couldn't imagine Sophie not having a little sister.  Maybe someday, when Sophie and Lily are grown and living their lives on the same block or different continents, they will meet for coffee.  Or, at the very least, their holograms will (because it's the future...get it?).