It’s too bad

He was born two years and nine months into her life. And from the beginning, people expressed their condolences.

“Oh, it’s too bad he’s a boy. They could have been so close.”

For myself — pretty sure that our family was complete — I mourned the idea of “sisters” and wondered what their future would be together. Would they ever see eye to eye? Would they find things to talk about? Would there be any of the closeness I had always hoped to see in my children?

 

I read Siblings Without Rivalry. I braced myself for endless teasing. I pictured what I assumed would be their very separate childhood paths.

I have been wrong about a great many things in my life but that one? That one I was so off-base as to be laughable.

They are almost the epitome of an Odd Couple. He is calm, thoughtful, and stoic. She has more of a wild flair, loves laughing, and can dissolve into silliness at the slightest mention of something funny. Given his druthers (which he isn’t) he would eat carbs almost exclusively, and never step foot outside except to check the mail. She’s an adventurer who rarely turns down an opportunity to try something — or someplace – new.

And yet … besties. Inseparable.

They can talk for hours, can finish one another’s sentences, can sit back to back reading in silence. To see him escort her in public is to watch a bodyguard at work. To hear her ask for his opinion is to listen in on a meeting of trusted advisors.

These two.

They won’t always live under the same roof, won’t always talk to one another even by phone every day. But the foundation is there. I guess they could have been closer, had he been born a girl. But I can’t imagine it. Just another thing “they” were wrong about.