It’s true. I won the siblings sweepstakes. My brother and my sister are exceptional people. If they weren’t in my family, I’d still want to hang out with them. The three of us are wildly different but it works seamlessly. We all have our strengths, our ‘position’ within the familial unit. Birth order probably has something to do with the harmony, but so does personality. We just fit together. It makes sense.
It’s hard for me to summarize my relationship with my brother and my sister in a single post. In fact, I could write for days and not clearly communicate the depth of my respect and love for both of them. So I’m taking the easy road. I’ll let other, more articulate people speak for me. Here are some of my favorite quotes about siblings:
A sibling may be the keeper of one’s identity, the only person with the keys to one’s unfettered, more fundamental self. ~Marian Sandmaier
We know one another’s faults, virtues, catastrophes, mortifications, triumphs, rivalries, desires, and how long we can each hang by our hands to a bar. We have been banded together under pack codes and tribal laws. ~Rose Macaulay
I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at. ~Maya Angelou
To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega
Sibling relationships – and 80 percent of Americans have at least one – outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust. ~Erica E. Goode, “The Secret World of Siblings,” U.S. News & World Report, 10 January 1994
Langley Writes 