The Larson boys don’t bicker about the amount of room they have in the backseat. We solved that problem years ago by driving minivans with captains seats — built-in space. Aaron gets the third seat; Alex and Luke are separated by an aisle.
Nope, no bickering on road trips — just in church.
“Mom, can you tell Luke to move over to the wall?” Alex asked Sunday morning.
And on it went.
The boys are starting to have their good days where I see a bit of bonding taking place, mostly when Alex and Luke walk in together after football practice. But, more often than not, it’s Alex telling Luke everything he’s doing wrong. As I listen, I again despair that they’ll ever get along.
Then I stop myself by thinking of my older sister and I.
Tina is 3 1/2 years older than me. To this day, she remembers the day I came home from the hospital and her world was turned upside down. I can count on one hand the memories of times she was really nice to me. OK, maybe I have a few more than five memories, but it’s easier to remember our growing up years as two kids living very separate lives.
My most vivid memory always hits at this time of year. It was near Halloween, probably my sixth-grade year. Tina was a freshman in high school and had a friend over for the afternoon. They wouldn’t let me near them, preferring to closet themselves in Tina’s room and ignore me.
I, of course, being the loving 11-year-old sister that I was, tried everything I could think of to get into Tina’s room. Eventually, Tina called in reinforcements.
“Mom, would you tell Gwen to stay out of my room?”
But at the end of the day, Tina and Terry Lou opened the door and invited me in. They’d spent the afternoon creating a haunted house for me. I had to wear a blindfold, but they took me through scary things like the brains in a bowl (cold spaghetti noodles) and eyeballs (peeled grapes).
I had a blast and felt really special, but I’m betting I never even thanked them. I was too cool for that.
It wasn’t that Tina and I hated each other. We long ago decided we were just wired differently. Where Tina was content with solitude (reading in her room), I wanted to be around people. Hence, the eternal struggle — Tina in her room and me wanting in.
In many ways, our lives progressed on parallel tracks that life kept from intersecting too often. Although 3 1/2 years isn’t that big of an age gap, it is when you’re young. It’s the difference between grade school and high school. And when I did get to high school, Tina was in her last year, planning her life away from home.
We briefly brushed up against being friends when I hit 16 — another memory.
Tina was enrolled at Washburn University, living in an apartment in a converted old house north of the college. She invited me up for the weekend. It was the first time I felt as if she were my sister, not my boss.
Shortly after, we veered apart again, when she married and started a family, and I headed to college. For the next 15 years, we lived our lives with our mom keeping each of us up-to-date on what the other was doing. We lost that connection 11 years ago when Mother died. Since then, Tina and I have slowly made our way back to each other, connecting because we’ve always been connected by blood, if nothing else.
In the last few years, however, we’ve discovered we have more in common than we thought. We can shop together without hating each other’s choices. We can share our favorite books, movies and TV shows with each other. (Tina was always a little more science fiction-fantasy than I was. Either her tastes have calmed down or mine have gotten a little more out-there.)
And we can talk about our lives — our jobs, husbands and kids — rejoicing in our similarities rather than making a point to focus on our differences.
As I see my relationship with Tina progress, I have renewed hope for my boys as they interact as adults. I can only hope I’ll be around 30 or 40 years from now to see how they turn out.
Comments
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Posted by HenryVIII (anonymous) on October 19, 2009 at 1:40 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I know how the posters on here like to debate grammar and such, so this'll be fun for 'em...
"minivans with captains seats"
Should captains be possessive? If so, would it be captains' or captain's? I think this one is confusing because "minivans" and "seats" are also plural.
The way you have it written is plural, non-possessive. To me, it seems to mean each seat is designed for multiple captains, but they don't directly belong to a captain. I don’t think this is correct because the seat surely wouldn’t fit multiple captains comfortably.
If you are saying that the minivans contain seats of the "captain" design, I think you could use: "minivans with captain seats"
If, however you are suggesting your kids are the captains and the seats belong to each of them you'd have to do something like: "minivans with captains' seats"
'enry
Posted by oh4theluvof (anonymous) on October 19, 2009 at 5:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Once again, Gwen, a very relateable story. As the older sister by seven years, I can attest to the fact that adulthood friendships are a wonderful reward for having to put up with those pesky little sisters. I even like to think that all of the lectures I leveled at mine about how obnoxious she was somehow played a part in her growing out of that stage. ;-)
Henry:
We only care about bad grammar when it's yours..........we're fun that way. :-)
Posted by create (anonymous) on October 19, 2009 at 7:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yea Henry. Not pickin' on Gwen. Know way!
Good story, Gwen. But unlike 04, I still get after my younger sister because she always makes such stupid choices.
Posted by glarson (Gwen Larson) on October 20, 2009 at 10:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
So... did I tell you about the time she wouldn't let me go outside to get the mail when we got home from school because I refused to tell her where I was going?
(Of course, if I'd grabbed it on the way in from the bus, the problem would have been solved, but that's beside the point!)
Posted by gwensbigsister (anonymous) on October 20, 2009 at 6:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Gwen, you admitted to having at least five good memories of your kind, loving and PATIENT older sister, yet your column only details two. I’m sure that’s because your space was limited, so I won’t take it personally (although I’d think you could have mentioned the time I saved your life by skillfully driving into a ditch to avoid that big truck…but I digress…). I just want to tell Alex, one older sibling to another, not to lose hope—it seems those annoying extra children that some parents insist on having can grow up to be not half bad. Who knew?
Posted by oh4theluvof (anonymous) on October 20, 2009 at 8:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)
LOL!!
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