Me, on the swim team, before I knew the 15 Rules.

I BROKE THE RULES. In my defense, I must say that I did not break all of them–just one, though it was the most important of them all. Driving the car, there I was screaming at myself for having forgotten something, asking myself how I could ever be so stupid. And then I remembered: No sister would let me do that. Would you?

No, you would not. I broke Rule Number 15, from the 15 Rules for Us Girls to Live By. If a friend of my daughter spoke to my child the way I was speaking to myself, I’d intervene something fierce. If someone spoke to my sister, Margaret, in that manner, I’d take that person down. So, among those New Year resolutions I plan to keep, is one that requires that I fess up when I break the rules.

Thanks. I feel a lot better. And I’ll try not to do that again. Though if I do, you’ll be the first to know.

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The Sister Project is starting to write down its rules for sisterhood. Mine follow; Paige and Anastasia have some, too. We hope you’ll add to the list.

W HEN OUR DAUGHTER was very young, we made up a game to play with her. Giving little thought to it and coming out of a long, hot car ride, it was designed with as much depth as a wading pool, meant to be something merely to cool us off at the moment. Not attempting to limn some psychological line here, instead, like most parents, we were merely trying to survive until the next rest stop. But the game tricked us.

“Are you a tree or a bush?” someone would ask someone else. “Are you a river or an ocean?” And the person would answer and then think up one to ask someone else. Sometimes this led to great delightful conversations with a 4-year-old, about who and what we really are.

“Oh no, Mom. I think you’re popcorn, not potato chips,” she’d argue firmly. And I agree. I am. How nice to finally know that for certain.

Want to play? If the list merely read:

Are you Dickens or Austin?
Are you sausage or bacon?
Are you musicals or opera?

…you’d probably have something to say.

Not Margaret, who would check “neither,” if such a box existed among the choices. And I know that. But I can easily broaden a list to include her.

Flats or heels?
City or country?
Yoga or Pilates?
Cats or dogs?
Bath or shower?
London or Paris?

Or I can narrow it right down, knowing not only that there is preference here for her, but also knowing which it is:

Spinach or broccoli?
Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot?
Gladiolas or scented geraniums?

Or, further still, I can narrow it to the where again there is no choice at all but here it’s because she loves both things and would prefer not to choose only one.

Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan?
Johnny Cash or Neil Young?
Frogs or birds?

In other words, I know her, as evidenced in the small choices I know she would make, if asked to do so. And while there could be comfort in that, there is not always comfort in that. In fact there is a great deal of discomfort in that. And here’s the rub: That’s good.

Of course I could easily devise the list that Margaret would hate having to answer in any public way. Just the list itself would reveal a great many things about her.

But why would I do that? We could all do this only for someone we know well, revealing the kinds of things we all rely on to stay as our backstory instead of our public face. These are those things we offer as currency only in the unique intimacies that characterize marriage, partnership or sisterhood. And I’d never tell you Margaret’s; I’d never tell you mine, and I’d never expect my husband or my sister, who know mine, to use them as currency in trade with you.

Knowing that someone else has yours in her pocket is both the pleasure and the danger we live with when we love. The comfort comes from knowing they are safely tucked away but that they identify you. The resulting discomfort comes from knowing someone knows them at all. It’s a sweet and sour sauce, to be sure, of which a little goes a long way. It’s nice to know someone has them. Use them? You never should. Have them? It helps that someone does when they deal with you.

These begin to sound like rules to live by, don’t they?

1.  That you have bits of knowledge about your sister that you use but do not tell.
2.  That you use them wisely without speaking of them, drawing from them without direct reference.
3.  That if you trade them, be prepared to pay the price.

Those are my rules.

Are there others? I think there are.

Let’s build a list.

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IT’S THE HOLIDAYS, the season to make lists. I had planned to write about that, as in what’s on my list/what’s on Margaret’s. But in The Sister Project’s first week online, so many of you emailed and commented about another topic that I’m moved to take it on here. The topic? Missing your sister at this time of year.

In just these few days, Priscilla wrote of reading to her sister as she lay dying; Melissa shared the story of her sister who was lost in an automobile crash. Lalita remembers her fourth sister as “a star in the heavens,” saying, “She remains a little girl while the three of us grow old hanging on to the edge of the earth, feeling enormously blessed.” And there have been others, each with a story of loss to share.

As I’ve said, I teach memoir. In each first class of a session, I listen to each student’s chosen personal essay topic. In every class, someone will choose to write about someone who left, about loss.

To get the topic going, I might ask the writer to simply make a list of what the person took with them when they went, because when people leave us, what they take tells us if they are going for good, going for show, or merely slinking off to someone else. Saltshakers are a good indication that he has not got someone else lined up. Taking only a sandwich tells us first that she’s hungry, and has little more than tonight in mind.

And we all know what he takes when he or she is leaving for good. Because it has happened to us, and it is in the list of what he took that the tale is told. That’s what makes the story truthful, as well as what makes it yours: What did he take of yours, what of his, and how do you define those, divide those, when at one time those lines were blurred by the smudge of love?

But people leave in different ways. In one first class, a woman sat stiffly, her arms crossed in front of her, dark bangs slammed right down to her brow. When it was her turn to reveal her topic, our exchange went something like this:

“I’m not even sure why I’m here.”

Uh-huh.

“My best friend just died.”

Oh. Oh dear.

“And I’m not writing about that. Nope. Got nothing to say. Too soon. Three weeks ago. Cancer.” She exhaled and unfolded her arms, and I exhaled, and we sat. All I could remember was the inutterable grief it was to lose my friend Susannah and what it is I did.

“Were you there when she died?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you live far away or nearby?

“Three hours away. I got the call.”

“What did you pack?”

“What?”

“What did you take with you?”

The next week she came in with a list. Actually it was three lists:

• What I brought.
• What I heard.
• What I said.

Under each were five mere sentences, 15 in all. And I hope she reads this post and sends the piece for you to read. It’s a wonder.

What about you? Have you lost a sister, blood or otherwise? While each hurt is unique, it carries within it its own identifiers that when shared, help us all to sort through grief, especially in this time of plenty.

Have a list? For some of us it would be what we drank or ate at the time, for others what we packed, perhaps what we prayed, or scribbled down, or maybe what we cook at the holidays to remember her by. I decorate my cookies with my friend Susannah’s panache; were she here, she’d be at my counter with me, covered in nine colors of royal icing.

Have you lost a sister, or a sister-friend, whether to distance, disagreement or even death? Write your list. It would be our privilege to see it.

_______________

Postscript: Artist Elsa Mora lost her older sister, though still living, to the dark maze of schizophrenia 10 years ago, a loss that inspires Elsa’s work even today. Read her story in the TSP Galleries.

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