Sisters

My Grammy likes to tell the story of when my second brother was born. My middle brother and I were staying with her, and my dad called to announce my mom had a little boy. Grammy told me this, and according to legend, I pouted, proclaiming that I had really wanted a sister. Trying to cheer me up, she told me "But now you're special because you're the only girl!" to which I retorted "I would have been special anyway!"

Anyone who knows me knows I have fantastic relationships with my brothers, and that I also have female cousins who are very much like sisters to me. But still, I never had anyone I could actually refer to as "my sister."

Then when I was almost 30, my middle brother decided that friendship with a special girl wasn't enough. They began dating and married within a year, and I suddenly had someone I could call "sister." In talking about her, the words "my sister" rolled off my tongue so easy that I typically drop "-in-law". But the title is nothing compared to actually having this woman in my life. She is full of kindness and has a wicked sense of humor. She sees my brother for everything he is and loves him senselessly (but still laughs about his quirks with me). She gave me my beautiful niece Ruth, and supported me so much in those first weeks with my daughter.

This past summer, that youngest brother I'd wished was a sister proposed to a girl he'd been dating only a few months. We were all a little surprised, but very happy. She sees him for him, but has this loving respect for him that was missing in past relationships. She loves his giving nature without taking advantage of it.  She has eagerly plunged into getting to know the family. As a bonus, she and my husband have already formed a mock-sibling-rivalry friendship.  Our sibling group was never going to be totally complete until the youngest found his match, and now she is here.

Both of these special women grew up with only sisters, so having my husband and whichever brother they aren't marrying is more novel for them, but to me, they are each a special gift I have waited my whole life for!

Would someone please tell me

How I am supposed to explain to my child someday that when she was 2 months old, we elected a president who sees her as an object because of her gender, and believes her to be sub human because of part of her racial heritage?

This isn't ok.

"What's your secret?"

Last summer, we had been hoping to start a family and had been unsuccessful thus far.  There were some things with me that weren't going quite regularly and I began to believe that was part of the problem, so I saw the appropriate kind of doctor, and sure enough she diagnosed me with (thankfully fairly mild) PCOS.  One of the other symptoms of PCOS is extreme difficulty losing weight, which was pretty validating considering all the work I'd put in to shed the 20 pounds of graduate school weight to no avail.

Doc put me on some medication (metformin, used kind of off-label) to help make things regular again.  I'm one of those people that seem to always end up with the side effects that there's only a 15% chance of, but thankfully, the only side effect for me was welcome: most of the graduate school weight came off within a couple months!  There was more than zero effort on my part otherwise, but I didn't starve or go crazy with exercise.

Over time, I have developed different attitudes and values for my life, and within the last several years, I have made a decision to put less emphasis on appearance and specifically body size.  I think my inability to shed the extra weight helped me here.  I put emphasis on living a healthy and balanced life and realized that much about my appearance was not in my control, so I turned my attention elsewhere.

It shouldn't have been surprising when coworkers and friends noticed I was wearing clothes a size or two smaller.  "What have you been doing?" they asked.  "What's your secret?"

Oddly enough, this attention that I once would have reveled in was still a little flattering, but due to my attitude changes, I kind of wanted to de-emphasize the weight loss.  Plus, in truth, I hadn't worked that hard for the changes.  So I often reply "I'm on medication for something else, but it's helped me lose a few pounds too!"  I guess I have a fear that people will think it's something that's really important to me or that I've really focused on.  Don't get me wrong, it's nice to fit into my older clothes and sizes again, but it's kind of like finding a $50 on the sidewalk.  Nice, but not life-changing.

Plus, the real reason for taking the medication has been something different.  So since mid-January, when people have asked me "What's your secret?"  what I've really wanted to say is this:

Little "Benny" or "Bernice" will be joining our family this coming football season!

"The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." Psalm 126:3