Sisters

I am joined in the love and care for a friend who is battling ill health by a group of women who inspire me.  As she fights to overcome her enemy, leukemia, we gather around her to share our strength, this band of sisters.  She has many men friends, too, who lend their spiritual muscle, but it is the women who are in my thoughts today. I came into this world with one sister of my blood.  She was and is my hero.  She guided and protected me when we were children.  As we became adults, she set an example I have tried to follow.  Her courage and her all-encompassing heart, her willingness to stand and be counted for the rights of women and all who need defense in the face of unfairness have set a standard to be admired. She taught me, by example, the value of sisters.  I have been fortunate to gain many sisters through my life, these women friends who stand together, sharing good times and bad, supporting one another faithfully.  These relationships are not based always on shared philosophies.  We have differing views on politics and religion and many other topics.  We set aside those differences to join hands metaphorically, as well as physically. What we share is our experiences as girls and women.  We understand each other at that gender level in a way we cannot share with men, just as they connect in ways we cannot fathom.  Our sisterhood is not about excluding males, but simply a reality that came with our chromosomes. We laugh together.  We cry together.  We dish and share the stories of romances that have touched our lives, the men we love and have loved, the ones who broke our hearts and, yes, those we treated badly and regretted.   We talk of our children, those we have reared and those who have come into our lives not through the birth canal, but through fate, those we've adopted, whether legally or by marriage or as unofficial "godmothers".  Some of us who are older have "adopted" younger women whom we have mentored in some setting or other.  All of them have changed our lives. We talk fashion, or the lack thereof.  We muse about the meaning of life, sometimes interchanged in far-ranging conversations with chat about the most mundane issues we face daily, like what to do about that pesky mustache that has developed.  Those of us still in our child-bearing years share lessons learned about the in-vitro process or breast feeding. When times are good, we celebrate.  When times are troubled, we circle our emotional wagons for solace.  Today, some of the special women I have met in New York, friends of my friend, are gathering in our mutual friend's hospital room to celebrate her birthday.  In this place we come together to be renewed and restored ourselves as we share the love and concern we feel for our sick friend.  We are sisters.