To The Two Who "Get" Me

I have two amazing sisters. I know, everyone with beloved and influential siblings says that.

We were all born very close toghether, and I simply don't remember life without them.

My oldest sister told me Santa Claus didn't exist - she was 8, and I was 5, and she did not dispel the myth with malicious intent. In later years we mused that this might have not crushed my innocence but likely helped me on my path toward a healthy cynicism.

She, to her credit, reports being completely flabbergasted by this earthshattering knowledge and the first thing in her mind was to rid herself of the secret and tell the rest of us.

We manned the trenches together like brothers in arms, supporting each other during a difficult childhood, sharing the experiences of specific familial warfare. We spent our adolescence together, yet drifted away somewhat during our 20's and 30's. As often occurs with wartime buddies, I have theorized that our collective experience affected us to such a painful degree that we couldn't be close or with each other and still continue to define ourselves as adults.

Thankfully, the passions of maintaining the boundaries of early adulthood have diminished to a simmering point - now we're in our 40's and enthusiastically reconnecting and finding that the circle of people who genuinely "get" us and our humour has collapsed enough that we can count them on one hand. All the more reason to hold those people very closely indeed.

I enjoy how effortless it is to make them laugh, and there is no one else in the world who makes me laugh so freely as these two.

They saw me into this world and If I am allowed a proper deathbed, my dearest wish is that theirs are the last faces I see.