Love My Brother and My Sister!

I'm compelled to post some pieces about my brother and sister.  Like our relationships, they are from different places, but reflect one sincere truth about us:  we are bonded.  Miles, life, time doesn't separate us or change our commitment to one another.  

I'm including the titles to the pieces these are lifted from just in case someone wants to read the whole bit from A Book of Pages.   

If you have a sibling - or a friend who is like one - tell them you love them today.  Pretty sure we can never say that often enough.

Here's to you Bob and Tina.  Thanks for keeping me!

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A Book of Pages About Crossing Bridges

Patchwork of Me       

P

ieces of color patched together, stitched with love, tossed about, useful, warmth- generating and comfortable.  That’s me.  I didn’t get this way on purpose.  Though I could have been torn asunder by circumstances beyond my control, instead I held together.   I have become me because of where I have been. 

 ***

 A stubborn piece of resilient material forcefully kept in position represents my brother and sister.  Although raised in a separate home far removed; they would not forget me.  My brother, at five years old, was the elder when we were taken from one another.  He was the great defender of our baby sister, only two at the time.  It would have been easy for them to cut ties from me since the adults in charge didn’t always see eye-to-eye unintentionally keeping us apart.  As we grew, our lives crossed paths every once in awhile.  Finally, we were grown enough to make our own decisions, to find one another.  Helping each other through times of crisis like settler families circling the wagons in defense; we have chosen to be family.  Our conversations frequently contain a reference to the fact that we don’t have to love one another, but we choose to.  We have few common interests among the three of us, yet we can easily talk for hours without tiring.  Committed, loved, forgiving:  I am from my brother and sister.

***

Though it might seem that the pieces of my life are haphazardly strewn about, closer inspection reveals careful placement in harmony with an ultimate plan.  If I have much to give, it is only because I have received abundantly.  Held together by undaunted faith, made stronger through adversity, compassionate and giving; I am. 

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Book of Pages About Crossing Bridges

From the Inside Out

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icture a piece of burlap. Strong. Tightly woven. Complete.

            Now picture that same fabric torn, not cut, into five pieces. The ends frayed and torn. Two of them more together than apart, but none of them completely connected any more.

            That’s what my family is like.

            Two young people in love and ready to conquer the world and beat the odds were overtaken by life’s demands. Push pulled and they were strewn asunder. Not cut with neat edges. Torn. Raggedly.  With strands flaying and seeking wholeness.

            And yet, one strand, invisible to the outside, still connects those lives. It’s like a band of steel that could not be torn, cannot be broken. It can be ignored or pushed aside, but it remains. Intact. Unchanging.

 ***

From the outside in, we aren’t a close family at all. Rarely are we all in the same space. Few pictures exist of all of us together. Two of us or three of us, now no more than four of us, gather from time to time. Our memories are stilted, disjointed.

            Being together takes effort. We make the effort because we enjoy each other, we get something from each other, we understand each other. We are okay apart, but much better together.

***

Even if we try to go on about our lives – the thread keeps tugging. Our minds, our hearts, our attention is centered on one another.

            We’re a family. Not like yours, perhaps, or any other. Together we are stronger, more complete.

            The burlap is frayed, but only needs to be placed near the other torn pieces momentarily to find the right place, to connect, to become whole.

            That’s my family from the inside out.

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To order a copy of 

A Book of Pages About Crossing Bridges 

or A Friend Named Jesus, 

please visit my website:  Writer's Pages

Facebook:  Author Kris A. Newman