Meine Liebe Schwester

So here's to a very Happy 48th Birthday to "meine liebe schwester aus Deutschland", my dear sister in Germany. Hard to believe that my little sister is 48 today. It seems like only yesterday that she was this clownish little kid making us all laugh with her occasional over-the-top little "shows" that she put on for us that were so funny and clever. Then, before I knew it, she was in college, moving out on her own, then eventually married and starting a family. Of the entire bunch of us, she's the only one who married - and stayed married. Our older sister was married for seven years, but eventually divorced her husband and has since had a few boyfriends, but I doubt that either she or I will ever marry, and most certainly we won't be having any kids at our ages (51 and 52 respectively). My nieces are now teenagers and looking quite grown up, and before I know it, they'll be off to college, possibly starting careers of their own, and who knows, maybe they'll even eventually marry and have kids of their own, although they both seem to swear they'll never do that, but stranger things have been known to happen. It kind of saddens me that my nieces have no maternal cousins and that the rest of us have opted to stay single and not have any children, but I attribute this to having grown up in a household with a strong and independent mother who seemed to want to raise strong and independent daughters. In that respect, she seems to have succeeded quite well. So here's to the youngest of those daughters, my kid sister who celebrates a birthday today! May it be a great day with her husband and kids and filled with a lot of good things that she richly deserves! I miss you, meine liebe schwester!

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

On Tuesday nights, my trainer Jason typically brings either the whole family with him to the gym or at least a few of his kids. Lately, his 8 year old daughter Savanna has been coming and last week began to work out with us a little bit. Last night, she decided she wanted to do the whole workout from start to finish, and she did really well. Strong girl, that one. Takes after her daddy. She asked her father if she could come regularly and I think that she will be a regular addition to our Women's Fitness class. Watching her interact with her father tinges me with just a little bit of sadness in that I find myself wondering how different my life might have been had I had a father. Sure, all these years after his passing it still pains me to think of what I missed by not having had a father. This is no disrepect meant for my mother, who is a strong woman who did a wonderful job of being both mother and father to us kids, but the relationship between mothers and daughters vs. fathers and daughters is far different, and I feel even more keenly the loss of that now as I grow older. I don't know why, but it does bother me a lot more than it used to. Maybe it's just the fact that I am growing older and am wondering if I might have married and had kids if I had just had a male role model around the house growing up. It's interesting to consider how different my life might have been had things in my early life gone just a bit differently. Oh, sure, you can "what if...." yourself to death and it does positively no good to waste time doing so, but I really do wonder at times, "What if I'd had a father growing up? What kind of relationship might I have had with him, and if he were still living at age 85, which is how old he would be now if he were alive, what kind of relationship would we have now as older adults?" This kind of loss affects you your whole life long and I suppose I will never stop wondering what life might have been like for me with a father, but I have to accept that the life I have now is the life I have, in a way, chosen for myself. And it's not all that bad, really. But there will always be that little bit of pain every time I watch a father with his daughter, and Father's Day is especially rough knowing that I never had a chance to thank my father for my life. But some part of me thinks he knows. At least I like to think so, anyway.