I Didn’t Speak to My Sister for 18 Years (Continued)

Inside were eighteen birthday cards. One for every year we hadn’t spoken. Every single one addressed to me, and not one of them ever sent.

I opened them in order. The early ones were angry, or proud — ‘I’m not calling first, and neither are you, I suppose.’ But as the years went on, the tone changed. They softened. They grew sad. ‘I saw a woman today who laughed like you and I had to leave the store.’ ‘I’m sorry, Ruthie. I’ve been sorry for years. I just don’t know how to start.’

The last card was dated only a few months before she died. It said: ‘I’m getting old and so are you, and I’ve wasted so much of what we had left. If you ever read this, know that I never stopped loving you, not for one single day of these stupid, stubborn years. You were my sister before you were anything else, and you still are. — Fran.’

She had written to me every year. She had wanted to reach me every year. And she had been too afraid, exactly as afraid as I was, and so both of us sat in our separate houses loving each other in silence until it was too late.

I don’t tell you this story so you’ll feel sorry for me. I tell it because if you are holding onto a silence with someone you love — a sister, a brother, a child, a friend — I am begging you to be the one who calls first. Pride is a cold thing to be left alone with.

I keep Frances’s eighteen cards on my mantel now, tied with a ribbon. And I have started writing back to her, one card a year, which I know is foolish. But it’s the conversation we should have had, and it’s the only way I have left to have it. Don’t wait as long as we did. Please.