Call the Sisterhood

There's a kind of crying that involves tears but more noticeably a moan that is pulled out from the center of your pain.  It's preferable to have this sort of cry when you're alone with your windows closed so that neighbors will not be alarmed.  If you have a cat, an intuitive cat, he will find your cave of sorrow and curl up beside you, attempting to regulate your breathing to the rhythm of his purr.  Once the moan has subsided, the cat will know you're pulling through and leave to resume his post at the chipmunk patrol.

I am the youngest of three girls.  I spent the entirety of my 20s working and living with women--a sisterhood with shared belief and appreciation for each other's distinct skills and attributes.  When I got married in 2009, I danced and played and celebrated with my sisters, both familial and spiritual ones.  My husband stood beside the dance floor and watched, soaking it in, loving and respecting how my life will always be entwined with sisterhood, even though each one of them now lives, what feels like, light years away. 

I have two boys, three if you count my man, and two fur-boys.  The small home we inhabit is filled with energy, laziness, farts and sweet kisses.  After years of hard work, pursuing new connections as a mother, I have found a tribe of women that meets about twice a year and drinks a little too much wine.  We are comfortable in each other's presence.  We are diverse in our worldviews and alike in our passion for laughter and geekdom.  In a given conversation, we can cover faith, mental illness, Marvel movies, and Dr. Who.  I have yet to watch Dr. Who and have been informed I'll most certainly lose my geek card if I don't get on that.

I am blessed.  I am blessed.  I am blessed.  But, what I have never been able to recover, in all the amazing gifts I experience in my current life, is sisterhood.  The kind of in-person, every day, alongside you, happy to be silent, understands your faults, and challenges you to love deeper, helps you clean the house, works with you in the kitchen kind of sisterhood.  95% of married women in America don't have this kind of sisterhood.  It is barely heard of, unless you mother countless children and the oldest becomes your friend, rolls up her sleeves to work alongside you, and doesn't resent you in the process.  Or unless you're a polygamist. 

So maybe it would have been better if I never knew this kind of companionship?  Because then I would not be missing it and grieving it and feeling lost without it.  Grief becomes a part of life.  It never goes away.  It is directly correlated to having loved deeply.  It is evidence of having known good things, but it hurts so damn much.

These past few weeks, my remedy to grieving sisterhood has been to watch episodes of Call the Midwife.  I've already seen every season, but I've begun again to soak in the beautiful and heart-wrenching BBC delirium of women living, working, and loving together.  They celebrate each other in their differences and common goals.  I cry every damn time a woman gives birth, and my heart is squeezed every time the sisters sing the liturgy of the hours in their chapel.  I feel like an 80 year old woman who doesn't have anyone else left alive to keep her company, and she's turning the pages of her photo albums over and over and over again.

Yesterday, I spoke with one of my sisters.  She had life in her voice, so much fresh joy and vision.  It pulled me out of my aged state and reminded me of new paths I have yet to take.  But this morning there were more tears and grief.  And so it continues.  Hope and pain intertwined.  We women need each other, even if it's just the word to get up and put on a clean pair of big-girl panties. 

The nation is full of grieving women right now, confused women, silent women, brave women, and alone women.  Stand by a sister today.  Call a sister today.  Ask God for a sister today.  Their joy is your joy.  Their pain is your pain.