Lessons My Sister Taught Me

Well, the update on my sister isn't the news we wanted to hear. The cancer is in her lungs, lymph nodes, and liver. She has an appointment with an oncologist to discuss available treatments and options and such, but I will say this about her .... She's utterly positive. When she called me with the news, she was practically giddy on the phone, "Hi sweetie, how are you?"

How am I? Seriously?

Then she gave me the news and, while she remained giddy and positive and fully understanding of what the diagnosis meant, I struggled to keep from crying. And then I began to remember things about her that I'd forgotten, or stored in some old memory box in my brain where it sat covered with dust until this morning. The box would be called 'Lessons My Sister Taught Me'. This is one of them .....

My sister joined the Air Force many moons ago and began moving everywhere. Spain and Germany; Delaware. I think New Mexico was in there, too. But soon enough she came back to California where the family lived and we got to see one another more often.

Still, she was a mountain girl, living in a small town in the foothills outside Sacramento, while I lived smack dab in the middle of our Capitol City. We were quite different; she enjoyed gardening, I enjoyed nice dinners with good wine; she was garage sale, I was Macy's. She was married, I was gay.

Different.

But this story isn't about that. This story is about the day she taught me how to say I love you. See, I was good at writing those words on a card, or signing them at the bottom of a letter, but I wasn't too keen on saying them out loud for whatever reason. But, one day, many years ago, she called just to chat--my sister loves to chat on the phone and I loathe it ... yet another difference between us--and we talked about all kinds of things, from what we were doing to what the world was doing. At the end of the chat, as we were saying our goodbyes, she said, All right then, I love you.

I said, Thanks.

Thanks; that was my response to my sister saying I love you. I mean, I guess I meant Thank you for loving me but that isn't really the correct response, is it?

So, as I tend to do, I sat there after that phone calll and wondered why it was so hard for me to say those words, and I realized that I come, came, from a family that didn't really ever 'say' the words. We showed our love; we knew we were loved; I guess we all felt we just didn't have to 'say' it. 

I also thought about that, somewhere, subconsciously, that I didn't deserve to be loved because I was the 'different' one; the gay son. I mean, my parents knew I was gay, and they were fine with that, they loved me, but I always wondered if they ever hoped that I wasn't; what parent wants a gay kid? No matter how much you love them, as a parent, you realize their lives would be easier if they weren't gay. So, I felt loved, but at the same time, unworthy of being loved because I wasn't the 'son' that had been expected.

My sister, thankfully, thought differently. Just saying I love you easily and simply, without force, made me realize that I was worth it.  And I thank her for that. See, after that conversation, and after my introspection, I listened to what she was saying: we all knew we were loved but she wanted us to hear it. And that made a huge difference.

Now, I didn’t change overnight and turn into one of those people that say I love you at the drop of a hat; it took time. And, I think the first time I said it back to her I probably choked on the words a little bit, as though they were somehow foreign to me. But it got easier and more natural.

And, I think it helped push away some of the Old Bob who might have been fearful of love and being loved. I think, having my sister teach me that lesson made it all the easier for me to tell Carlos I loved him, and to hear him say it back to me, and to keep telling him and telling him and telling him.

It wasn't that my sister loved me, I always knew that, and know that, it's that she made me realize I was worth it, and I could say it, and hear it and mean it and be it. That's just one of the lessons my sister taught me.

My sister, my hero.

There's only us, there's only this
Forget regret, or life is your's to miss
No other path, no other way
No day but today

There's only us, only tonight
We must let go to know what's right
No other road, No other way
No day but today

I can't control my destiny
I trust my soul, my only goal
Is just to be

There's only now, there's only here
Give in to love or live in fear
No other path, No other way
No day but today

There's only us, There's only this
Forget regret, or life is your's to miss
No other road, no other way
No day but today

No day but today
No day but today
No day but today
No day but today