by Sherry Horton Blake

Created on: February 02, 2009   Last Updated: March 09, 2012

When I look back on my childhood, I cannot see myself without seeing my two little sisters. We were so close in age that we had the same friends and played the same games in childhood. We were the three musketeers, all for one and one for all. I remember the day when a boy in the neighborhood knocked my sisters down, and I pushed him off his bike. My message was, "Mess with my sisters, and you mess with me."

In our teenage years, we had different friends and were not always together. However, in looking back at those years, I still cannot visualize myself without my sisters. We had our fights, of course. I was something of a recluse with my books and my writings, and I would yell at them if they disturbed my space. However, I remember the pride I felt watching my cheerleader sister perform, and the pride I felt when my youngest sister gave her valedictorian speech on her graduation day.

My sisters and I married, and we had children, and we saw each other at birthdays and other family events. There were times when we lived far apart and did not see each other often. There were other times, however, when we lived close to one another and often got together, and our children enjoyed special times with their cousins.

Now at age 55, I wonder what happened to those three little girls. In looking back at the past five years, I see myself but not my sisters. It became not only inconvenient to see them, but unpleasant to see them, or so I thought. I try to make sense of the change from the three little girls, barefoot and playing horses with mom's brooms and mops, galloping around the neighborhood, to the three women, facing in different directions, that we have become. However, if I experience any regrets, I just remind myself that the direction their lives took did not fit with mine, and we are no longer those little girls.

Last year, however, my husband was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. The hurt inside me grows daily as I try to envision a future without him, but I cannot. All of a sudden, I am not a confident woman, but rather I am a little girl, afraid to go into the darkness of this situation alone. My mom is there, and I am thankful for her. More and more, though, I yearn for my sisters. I need them to come and bring their brooms and mops and gallop through this neighborhood with me. It is a neighborhood I am afraid to walk through alone. When I look into the future, I cannot see myself without my sisters. I want to call them and hear them tell me, "All for one and one for all."

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