You Can't Go Home Again If You Never Lived There

My friend Fran posted this on Facebook: "Your sister is your first friend in life. No one will ever understand your crazy family like your sister. Even if you don't get together or talk as much as you would like, she'll always remain your friend. Your sister will hold your hand for a little while, but will hold your heart for a lifetime. It's "National Sister Week." Re-post if you have a sister you love!"

I didn't re-post, for several reasons. First of all, who says it's National Sister Week? I'd like to chat with that person, please. Next, how does one celebrate if your sister made your life a living hell--robbing you of your childhood, dogging you for money as an adult, calling you at all hours with insane paranoid ramblings, coming at you with knives and broken shards of glass, trashing your room when you were growing up in the same household--how? Just asking, for all of us who missed out on that great sister bond, despite having had a sister. Well, it's too late for me now, that's for sure...

The whole thing reminds me of the Lake People. Several of my friends grew up in families that had summer houses on various lakes in scenic places like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and upstate New York. Strangers to one another, yet they all share childhood memories--which are the best kind after all--of hot summer days swimming in the lake and cool summer nights tucked into flannel sheets smelling like pine cones. They all had summer friends, met their future spouses on the water, sat around roaring bonfires toasting marshmallows and sailed on the lakes in motor boats or sailboats, water skiing their way to adulthood where they now watch their kids and grandkids doing the very same things in those very same houses. (Their sisters are probably all there, too.)

Several times I have been invited to these lake houses as a grown-up, and observed aloud how nice it must be to have had that in your life. Hey, maybe I'm not too late for that! A few years back, I asked my friend Betsy, our hostess for the weekend, if there were any houses on her particular lake for sale; it would be nice to have a second home there. She said instantly, "You can never be a lake person if you didn't grow up here. Or else, you can marry into it." (I wonder if Ralph Lauren knows that.)

So, no lake house. No sister. Poor me. "White whine," my son would call it, but there it is.