Full Circle

I recently returned home from spending two weeks on Kauai with my sister, Kendra. (Those of us who knew her before she reached professional status have always called her Kendy, and it has proven impossible to teach old family new tricks.) She has invited me to join her in her timeshare reservations since 2018. Actually, make that 2017, when all four of us vacationed together in Oahu in January. Kendy and Craig, John and Marna – living the highlife in Kendy and Craig’s condo for a fun week together. John and Craig died just two months apart later that year; John in August, Craig in October. It was a tough year.

So now it is only Kendy and me, and I am the lucky one who often gets to be her travel partner. It feels inappropriate to use the concepts of “lucky” and “our husbands died” so close together, so I guess what I mean to say is that I feel fortunate she invites me to join her as she uses her timeshare weeks and accumulated points to travel the world. She and I have toured the British Isles, Spain, Portugal, Paris (for one whirlwind day), and have been to Kauai four times and back to Oahu once, with all its sweet memories of the four of us vacationing together. She is good at getting the most out of her investment, not letting any of her opportunities go to waste, and I get to join her frequently.

She is a seasoned international traveler. I am not, but she has mentored me in numerous ways. I can spend two weeks living out of a carryon, have travel cubes that make ALL the difference when you’re packing for anything, own plug adapters for any number of countries all over the world, and can claim that I have set foot in a total of sixteen countries, eight of those just in the last four years since I started traveling with Kendy.

We both think our parents would be surprised how well we get along on these trips, because we were not close as we were growing up. She was the first born and a satisfied only-child for five years until I came along and spoiled her reign. After that she had to start sharing her parents with a younger sister, followed by two younger brothers. The age difference (and frankly, the personality differences) between the two of us contributed to our separation. She was five years older than I was, a lovely girl who became a beautiful woman to my awkward, chubby always working on my self-esteem personality. She was the class Valedictorian to my did-OK academic run, she married her high school sweetheart, a West Point graduate turned physician, and I had a series of high school and college boyfriends before I married and became a divorcee – until I finally hit the jackpot when I married John. As the annoying younger sister, I adored her, but she didn’t readily take me under her wing. (And, seriously, what 16-year-old wants an 11-year-old tagging along after her?) I was sentimental and flighty; she was pragmatic and down-to-earth. She wasn’t afraid to rock the boat, and I was the middle-child peacemaker.

But as the years have gone on, we have both changed. She has mellowed some and I have hardened a bit, and we are no longer as far apart on the emotional spectrum as we once were. We meet closer to the middle and get along great. I still adore her, and I know she loves me. She once drew a line down the middle of our bedroom so my stuffed animals and family pictures wouldn’t encroach on her study-hard minimalistic side of the room. Now she invites me to join her on her travels.

Yep. We do well together. She owns the timeshare. I rent the car. We share the cost of groceries. We agree that going out for lunch then making dinner in our suite works well most of the time. We both read. We make each other laugh. She gets up very early, I go to bed very late. She paints, I write. We return to favorite places she and Craig used to go during their years in Hawaii, and she and I have discovered a few new ones that we get excited about revisiting every year. We talk about John and Craig and how much they enjoyed each other’s company. Sometimes we have to share a bed, but we are better at it now than we used to be.

We proved we could go back to our roots in the fall of 2017. I was one day away from flying out to help Kendy as she cared for Craig while he was on home hospice. My niece, Megan, was there, but was going to have to return home to her family in Chicago in a few days. Craig passed away before I got there. I flew out on my same schedule anyway, wanting to help in any way I could. The guest room was already reserved, so I slept with Kendy until Megan had to go home to Chicago. I laid in bed that first night – grieving Craig, missing John, feeling deep empathy for my sister and what she was going through. And among all those weighty emotions, another thought kept popping up. After all these years and all this life – here I am – back to sleeping with my sister. This was a life-full-circle moment I hadn’t seen coming.

But full circle or not, things truly have changed a lot. That night in 2017 – and on all the other travels and rooms Kendy and I have shared since – neither one of us has kicked the other. Mom would be so proud.