dual personalities

Tag: sisters

December 18, 2025

All kinds of weather we stick together/ The same in the rain or sun

by chuckofish

Today is my sister/dual personality’s birthday! We wish her many happy returns of the day!

It was interesting spending 10 days with my prairie granddaughters and watching the interplay between them. Like my sister and me, they are about two and half years apart. It made me a little sad seeing how the older sometimes treats/manipulates the younger, knowing that I’m pretty sure I did the same thing. The younger is so sweet and is always trying to please her sister and mimic her. It is no surprise that she sometimes gets very frustrated. Well, siblings are one of our greatest blessings, but they also teach us the ways of the sin-sick world. We learn to cope. My older brother said plenty of mean things to me and it helped me develop a thick skin. Our siblings keep our pride in check.

I’m grateful my sister and I grew up to be close. I wish we could celebrate together! But I will be with her in spirit. And the spirit is always:

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December 18, 2024

For there is no friend like a sister*

by chuckofish

Today we toast my darling sister on her birthday. We have been together through thick and thin. Now we are both old retired ladies, trying to stay healthy and keep out of trouble.

I enjoy watching Katie and Ida as they navigate the rocky road of sisterhood. (And watching them watching Betty and Judy singing about “Sisters”!)

I pray that they will stay as devoted to each other as my sister and I, and though the miles may divide them, they will stay in close touch.

*“For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.”

(“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti; read the poem here.)

And I thought this post by Ann, wherein she links to another post on X, is excellent on the subject of keeping the Christmas feast in a wayward and dark world. Read the whole thing.

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December 18, 2018

In calm or stormy weather

by chuckofish

Today is my dear DP’s birthday. There is nothing that makes me feel older than my little sister reaching an age milestone, even hitting that milestone myself! We are getting to be such old ladies!

Screen Shot 2018-12-17 at 9.08.10 AM.pngHere she is on a dig in Jordan back in 1985 when she was a twenty-something graduate student, back when we had waistlines and tucked in our shirts.

Screen Shot 2018-12-17 at 9.02.12 AM.png

You may have gathered that my sister is the intellectual in the family and the most like our mother in that respect. Our mother was very proud of her, traveling all over the world in the pursuit of knowledge. She lived to see her go on to Yale and the Babylonian Collection, but she did not see her married and the mother of three boys. She would have been equally proud of that. She would have loved that she is a college professor. And she would have been very happy to know that she is a elder in her church.

I have always been proud of my little sister as well. She did the things I wasn’t able to do–she made the varsity field hockey team! She was never timid.

Well, we have been lucky to have each other and to support each other through the years, because, you know…

…there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands

(Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”)

Perhaps we are beginning to totter a bit, but we’re still standing! Join me in a toast to my much loved dual personality!

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