Tirza ~ May 15

 

May 15, 2024

 

(inspired by Gloria’s entry, not knowing why Marcia made her cry)

 

Every time I saw Rachel I would blow my top and I had no idea why.  Afterwards, I was ashamed and muddled.  This was the sister that I loved and missed so much since she stopped living with us when I was six and she was sixteen.  But inevitably, during her short and infrequent visits, I always seemed to find a way to be angry or hurtful, yelling or crying as I stormed out of the room.

Late in my thirties, I realized that I was angry with my beloved sister for leaving me, alone with my other sister and with my two parents who were not very good with any needs other than their own.  

And it changed everything.  
“You’re my sister, and I hardly know you.  Whenever we see each other, we’re always talking about them,” I told her. 

We agreed to meet halfway between Israel and New York in England. And to keep our meeting secret.

We met in London, then took a train to Chester where we rented a car to drive through the Lake District and a bit of Scotland.  Things started out being as difficult as learning to drive on the wrong side of the street.  We didn’t know what to talk about, what each of us liked and disliked, choosing places to stay.  I was a creature of cities, she loved nature.  I wanted to stay in towns, she preferred country cottages readily accessible to fields and hiking trails.  I liked to sleep in, she preferred venturing out in the early morning.  We even complained about different things, the hikes regardless of rain, the heavy English breakfasts.  

For me the first day of driving was what clinched it.  

I had taken a cab to the car rental agency while Rachel waited at the Chester train station with our bags.  In the city, I was able to maneuver back to the train station guided by the flow of traffic.  I picked her up, our bags safely in the trunk, and set off just as it was getting dark.  

As soon as Rachel got in the car, she began screaming whenever she thought I was on the wrong side of the road or too close to a hedge or stone wall, which happened with some regularity.  In a knee jerk reaction, I’d swerve one way then another. It took all our wits and some argument to reach consensus as to which side was the right side to be on.  And then we’d laugh, on course for a few more miles, or kilometers.   Kind of like a sideways roller coaster, made increasingly scarier with the dark.

The next morning, it was Rachel’s turn to be the driver.  The same scenario played out, this time with me doing the screaming. 

More than the air cleared out the car windows on the wrong side of the winding country roads. Or maybe the right side.

And on that trip, we became friends.  For many years, best friends.