by R Marie Taylor

Created on: February 09, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

The White Skirt....

There was a large gift box sitting on my bed when I got home from school. It wasn't my birthday or a holiday or anything so I was beyond shocked to see it there.

In the box was a white skirt. This wasn't just any white skirt, it was the one required by our high school choir teacher for anyone that planned to participate in a hugely important Louisiana State choral festival. The skirt wasn't free, it had to be purchased from a school uniform shop, but we didn't have any money.

The festival was going to be in a few days and I knew that I would be unable to go, but I just couldn't tell my teacher because I was ashamed and embarrassed so my 'big plan' was to call in sick at the last minute. I was very sad about it.

So, when I opened the box and found that skirt I started to cry and felt so very excited! "It's a white skirt!" I cried, as if everyone in the house didn't already know.

"How?" I asked... "How did we manage to get it? I thought we couldn't afford it..."

Daddy stood there smiling sheepishly, "Your sister got the money from somebody and went out and bought it..." She just smiled and gave me a hug "Now you can go to the festival with your choir..." she laughed.

Mama had died a couple of years earlier, otherwise I would never have come so close to missing out on the festival, because mama always found a way to make things happen when it was important.

Several years later, I found out what really happened when I came across a pawn shop receipt. My sister had scraped the money together for a one way bus fare to New Orleans, back then it was a 2 hour ride, however, they've since built a bridge over the Mississippi river and it's only a few minutes.

But she took the bus to a pawn shop in the city and pawned her high school ring, then she walked to a school uniform shop in new Orleans and bought my skirt and had it wrapped. Then she got back on the bus and came home, put the skirt on my bed and waited for me to get back.

She married a drunk, who didn't treat her right. I begged her for years to come out to California and start a new life with her kids. One day she was truly in despair, her husband was spending the money on another woman and she couldn't even afford diapers, much less a place of her own. I asked her "Do you remember that white skirt?" and we had a long talk about how much it meant to me to have one person in the world who really cared about me, even when I had absolutely nothing to offer them. "I'll get you started in your own place and if if doesn't work out, then you can always come stay with me, because as long as I have a house, then you have a house..." We worked it out, and split the cost of the tickets. And she came out with $100 pinned in her bra and I had an empty cottage with a bunk-bed, fridge and the first months rent paid waiting for her. The place was only a couple of blocks from my house.

She took it from there and found a job and childcare within 48 hours of arriving in town. Once again, it involved many hours on the bus going to and from work and the childcare center, but my sister never was afraid of hard work and she paid her own way from that point on.

We call it "The White Skirt" which means that she and I will do whatever is necessary to help the other out in a situation of real need.

That is sisterhood as I understand it.

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