Robbie had a doll named Rona. That killed me. The sweetest. I adore this essay.
I had trouble making friends when my family moved from Manhattan to Long Island when I was 7. Before that time, I had friends, one special one named Vicki, and yet, I don't have any stand-out memories. When I was in 7th grade I found my bestie. We'd traveled through elementary school together, were in a Brownies troop together, but weren't really drawn to one another until later. And when our friendship happened my life was good. I was head over heels in love with Susie, as a friend, not a romantic interest. And then, just like that, in 8th grade, she stopped talking to me. For an entire school year. I was utterly confused and heartbroken, and she wouldn't explain why she'd left our friendship. I was completely shut out. By ninth grade, she returned, and filled with shame, admitted to me that there were people who were gossiping, saying we were lesbians. I barely knew what that was at the time. She decided it would be easier to walk away than defend something that meant so much to her, too. We mended the hurt (somewhat), and reunited. Once, when she was in college, and I was out in the world, working, she came to stay with me, and we shared a bed for that night. We ambled around in bed, and tried kissing. One kiss, and we pulled away, looking at each other, and burst out laughing. We were never that kind of couple.
And the separation still brings pangs of hurt when I think about it.
I remember tumbling around on a bed with my best friend (her idea). We were not that kind of couple. She married and had a son, as well as an exceptionally close friendship with a woman. After she died, several of us realized they were probably lovers. It was not okay for a woman of her vintage and ethic community to admit her true nature. Thank your sharing the poignant story of Susie.
I spent much of my life— decades now numbering seven— longing for a different kind of sister— a sister who’d call me up on a regular basis just to share small details of our lives, a sister with whom I’d go shopping, take a trip to the beach , consult on children, my crumbling marriage, work projects, the stuff of daily life.
When we’d pay each visits — not just every year or five. When our father got drunk— as he did every night of our childhood—and when our mother was dying , we’d find solace in each other’s arms.
That never happened, and I understand why. As wildly as our mother loved us both , and as much as we returned her love, she pitted us against each other in a manner I never replicated with my own children.
It has taken us most of seventy years to find our way back to each other. It is my sister’s writing about us, and about our family, that accomplished this. Not Sunday night phone conversations or trips to the nail salon together. It’s quiet moments like this one in which we find ourselves a thousand miles apart, when I open up an essay she has written and feel the love and connection in her words.
And a rush of love for my sister overcomes me.
Rona, you have given and continue to offer one of the greatest gifts one person can provide to another: the gift of being seen, remembered, known.
Even when I don’t remember the details of my story, I can count on my sister to do so.
Sister love takes many shapes. During our tumultuous and unpredictable childhood, my sister and I had only each other to rely on. We weren’t always confidantes but we shared a deep bond. Similar to experiences you and others have recounted, our mother—and later her nasty boyfriends—did their best to poison the beautiful well we shared as siblings. As young adults, my sister and I made very different life choices, and helped along by our mother’s toxic lies, we drifted apart, though I always wished and hoped for restoration even as I made dubious decisions about my own path. When our mother died in her late sixties, peace descended on our family. Finally, my sister and I found emotional room and the time needed to begin repairing the distance between us. Now I am 70 and my little sis is 68. We are close confidantes and we don’t hesitate to express our love and appreciation for each other. Occasionally we squabble but we apologize. The years we invested in rebuilding trust have given us a treasured return. Thank you for sharing your story, Rona, as I’m sure there are many siblings who have almost given up hope.
Angela, your experience confirms what the research on adult siblings has shown: These relationships tend to grow stronger with age, as we learn to cut each other some slack and separate our true grownup selves from the phantoms created by parents. I’m glad you and your sister found your way back to each other. For Joyce and me, our current relationship is among the greatest rewards of later life.
Joyce, this comment gives me hope that one day, even if it takes decades, the broken relationship between my sister and I (we were also pitted against each other - and poisoned - by our mother), will be healed through the power of the written word.
We haven't been able to fix things verbally - so damaged is the relationship that we don't even speak anymore - but perhaps I will accomplish what Rona has with you and write something that will speak to her on a deeper level. I didn't even have hope for that until I read this post and comment, so thank you both for showing me what is possible.
Another essay that leaves me speechless with admiration. Yes, I had that friend and we loved each other. Then she dropped me in 7th grade. Luckily, my family moved away, and I no longer had to have my heart broken every day at the bus stop. We reunited in our 50s. In three years she was dead of cancer. I woke up thinking of her this morning, and here was your essay. Xo
Elizabeth, I wish you two could have had more time to enjoy your rekindled friendship. The 50s are a treacherous decade. At least four of my friends died of cancer before reaching 60. Then I started losing people faster, but it’s particularly shocking to lose people in the prime of midlife, when they have hit their stride personally and professionally.
I've thought a lot about this essay today. I had childhood friendships, but since we moved five times (twice to different countries), and I attended four different schools before I turned nine those friendships were truncated by physical, involuntary, and pretty final separation. The friends who stuck with me were fictional, Nancy Drew, Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre, all the children who traveled to Narnia and back, Mary Lennox, and Sarah Crewe. I could enter into their lives and take them with me no matter where I had to go. My longest standing friendships were forged in high school. My siblings, however, who were six and three when we made that one last move still maintain close friendships with people they've known since then. The different roads we travel, even in the same family.
It’s a privilege and an honor to stay on a reader’s mind. As for books, I too had a tribe of fictional friends, culminating with Holden Caulfield (whom I wrote about here a few months ago). It’s tough to be a sensitive child even if your family stays in one place. I can’t imagine the strain of all those moves that your siblings, being more easygoing, were able to absorb.
I admire the graceful ease of your stories but most of all the openness and feeling that sings through your words. I’ve written about friendship often in my books- written for children but really for the child in me, the child in all of us. Those longings for connection never go away. How we handle the roller coaster of relationships changes with experience, reflection and time but the longing will always be there. And the joy of meeting a kindred spirit is one of the great joys of life. At every age.
For me every longing for connection, and every glimmer of its possibility, goes back to childhood. My current friendships draw from a deep well. I’m glad we’re friends.
This was beautiful. It conjured up so many feelings and memories for me. As an aside, for three years I have had the words "coup de foudre" scribbled on a yellow piece of paper and taped to my office wall.
It's hurt far more losing friends in my adult life than at younger ages. Or maybe it's just that the memory is fresher. Either way, what's left behind is an abiding sense of betrayal. I never had the option of knowing what it might've been like to have a sister, especially one who never gave up on me. Thanks for sharing this sweet, sad story, Rona.
Elizabeth, I had one terrible bust-up with a friend about a dozen years ago. In the aftermath, I realized this friendship had been on the brink for a multitude of reasons, not least the advancing alcoholism that magnified her toxic political views. She would be cheering for Project 2025. There was much to love about her, or used to be, so the explosive ending still hurt. I'm glad you enjoyed this story, even if your own experience was very different.
Every circumstance is different, of course, but the hardest losses for me have been those where the punishment of a blown friendship didn't seem equal to the crime. But I've been on both sides of that equation, so who am I to say? Thanks, Rona.
When I was a kid, my best friend was a girl who lived in the old manor house in our idyllic little village (one of those ones where there's a stream, and a C15 church, and a pond where Henry VIII supposedly lost his ring etc). We were like two tiny explorers! But then I was sent to a different school and we gradually drifted apart. I have completely lost contact with her now, which is strange because, for a time, we were inseparable!
If you and your friend are going to be tiny explorers, it must help to have a 15th-century church and a story of a lost royal ring. Maybe that’s my envy talking. Robbie and I made magic in a place with no legends but our own, with a dash of Peter Pan.
A wonderful essay that has me reflecting on my own childhood. I'm one of a twin, but if we ever held any sway over other children like the McClures I never heard about it. I guess I had friends growing up, but I never gave friendship a thought. Which makes your essay on the subject doubly interesting to me.
How interesting that you never thought about friendship as a child. Perhaps that’s because you didn’t have to think anout it. For some children it comes naturally and fades without pain. I was not that kind of child. Yet you were able to appreciate my story, rooted as it was in a childhood very different from yours.
When I was four and five years old I had a girlfriend who was a year older than me. She was foul-mouthed and aggressive and was always getting me into trouble. About five years later I had another girlfriend who was very different. She was demure, delicate even, and we used to love riding our bikes all over Northwest Buffalo and the suburbs further north. I remember spending a lot of time alone with these girls and they were from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Things ended with the mouthy, aggressive little redhead when my parents forbade me to play with her anymore. The older, shy girl and I just drifted apart. I can’t say that I ever had a crush on either of these girls; they just lived nearby and that was convenient. The shy girl and I just drifted apart, though she lived just down the street from me for many years afterwards. The last time I saw her she had been beaten around the face and arms and she was trying to hide the bruises with makeup. The other girl, the aggressive little five-year-old redhead, moved away not long after my parents told me I couldn’t play with her anymore. Her dad worked with my uncle and got lung cancer. My uncle worked close to our house and used to stop by for lunch about twice a week. Sometimes he told my mother how this girl’s dad’s treatment was going. The guy seemed to be doing well until the cancer showed up in his testicles and they had to be removed. He didn’t last very long after that. I’m sure there’s a story or short reminiscence in there somewhere but I’m not sure if I want to tackle it. Thanks, Rona,for spurring me to think about these girls and offering a place to briefly share my times with them!
Rafael, I read this comment after a long day of travel. Your memories revived my spirits. My greatest hope for these essays is that they’ll open doors for readers. I wonder if those long-ago friends ever think of you. It wouldn’t surprise me if they do.
This story touched someplace hidden in me where I was saw the look of relief on the faces of the kickball team that was spared from picking me. Then I found my best friend, Patty, in sixth grade - not "besties," but close enough. Even though my family moved away 3 years later, we stayed in touch and visited across country. I dreamed of an adult friendship her - being in each other's wedding, sharing stories of pregnancies and motherhood. She died in her early 20's of breast cancer. Life goes on and mine became full of good things, but you took me back to how I felt during those moments of childhood aches. Thanks, Rona, for sharing you priceless gift of writing.
Such grace in this story Rona. True friendship, however brief (or imagined!) carves itself into us, tilling the soul for everything that comes after. Those twins had nothing on you! Isn’t it strange how easily charmed we can be in our youth? I remember a mean girl from elementary school who always matched her socks to her top. I LONGED to be her friend for that reason alone!
Childhood is the wellspring of everything. I remember envying girls whose socks stayed up. Mine were hand-me-downs from my cousins, descending into my shoes. Glad you enjoyed this, Kimberly.
Robbie had a doll named Rona. That killed me. The sweetest. I adore this essay.
I had trouble making friends when my family moved from Manhattan to Long Island when I was 7. Before that time, I had friends, one special one named Vicki, and yet, I don't have any stand-out memories. When I was in 7th grade I found my bestie. We'd traveled through elementary school together, were in a Brownies troop together, but weren't really drawn to one another until later. And when our friendship happened my life was good. I was head over heels in love with Susie, as a friend, not a romantic interest. And then, just like that, in 8th grade, she stopped talking to me. For an entire school year. I was utterly confused and heartbroken, and she wouldn't explain why she'd left our friendship. I was completely shut out. By ninth grade, she returned, and filled with shame, admitted to me that there were people who were gossiping, saying we were lesbians. I barely knew what that was at the time. She decided it would be easier to walk away than defend something that meant so much to her, too. We mended the hurt (somewhat), and reunited. Once, when she was in college, and I was out in the world, working, she came to stay with me, and we shared a bed for that night. We ambled around in bed, and tried kissing. One kiss, and we pulled away, looking at each other, and burst out laughing. We were never that kind of couple.
And the separation still brings pangs of hurt when I think about it.
I remember tumbling around on a bed with my best friend (her idea). We were not that kind of couple. She married and had a son, as well as an exceptionally close friendship with a woman. After she died, several of us realized they were probably lovers. It was not okay for a woman of her vintage and ethic community to admit her true nature. Thank your sharing the poignant story of Susie.
Thank you, Rona, for sharing yours xo
I spent much of my life— decades now numbering seven— longing for a different kind of sister— a sister who’d call me up on a regular basis just to share small details of our lives, a sister with whom I’d go shopping, take a trip to the beach , consult on children, my crumbling marriage, work projects, the stuff of daily life.
When we’d pay each visits — not just every year or five. When our father got drunk— as he did every night of our childhood—and when our mother was dying , we’d find solace in each other’s arms.
That never happened, and I understand why. As wildly as our mother loved us both , and as much as we returned her love, she pitted us against each other in a manner I never replicated with my own children.
It has taken us most of seventy years to find our way back to each other. It is my sister’s writing about us, and about our family, that accomplished this. Not Sunday night phone conversations or trips to the nail salon together. It’s quiet moments like this one in which we find ourselves a thousand miles apart, when I open up an essay she has written and feel the love and connection in her words.
And a rush of love for my sister overcomes me.
Rona, you have given and continue to offer one of the greatest gifts one person can provide to another: the gift of being seen, remembered, known.
Even when I don’t remember the details of my story, I can count on my sister to do so.
With love.
The loveliest comment I could receive. I feel the same at last.
Sister love takes many shapes. During our tumultuous and unpredictable childhood, my sister and I had only each other to rely on. We weren’t always confidantes but we shared a deep bond. Similar to experiences you and others have recounted, our mother—and later her nasty boyfriends—did their best to poison the beautiful well we shared as siblings. As young adults, my sister and I made very different life choices, and helped along by our mother’s toxic lies, we drifted apart, though I always wished and hoped for restoration even as I made dubious decisions about my own path. When our mother died in her late sixties, peace descended on our family. Finally, my sister and I found emotional room and the time needed to begin repairing the distance between us. Now I am 70 and my little sis is 68. We are close confidantes and we don’t hesitate to express our love and appreciation for each other. Occasionally we squabble but we apologize. The years we invested in rebuilding trust have given us a treasured return. Thank you for sharing your story, Rona, as I’m sure there are many siblings who have almost given up hope.
Angela, your experience confirms what the research on adult siblings has shown: These relationships tend to grow stronger with age, as we learn to cut each other some slack and separate our true grownup selves from the phantoms created by parents. I’m glad you and your sister found your way back to each other. For Joyce and me, our current relationship is among the greatest rewards of later life.
I’m glad the phantom sisters are gone. 🕊️
Joyce, this comment gives me hope that one day, even if it takes decades, the broken relationship between my sister and I (we were also pitted against each other - and poisoned - by our mother), will be healed through the power of the written word.
We haven't been able to fix things verbally - so damaged is the relationship that we don't even speak anymore - but perhaps I will accomplish what Rona has with you and write something that will speak to her on a deeper level. I didn't even have hope for that until I read this post and comment, so thank you both for showing me what is possible.
Petra, we didn’t speak for a couple of years. People can surprise each other.
This sentence comes with vivid images: little boys scheming, little girls dreaming. It has it all.
"No word but love embraces what we shared—what all kids share with the chosen friend who chooses them back."
Thank you, Linda. I’ve always felt that adults underestimate the power of children’s first attachments outside the family.
Another essay that leaves me speechless with admiration. Yes, I had that friend and we loved each other. Then she dropped me in 7th grade. Luckily, my family moved away, and I no longer had to have my heart broken every day at the bus stop. We reunited in our 50s. In three years she was dead of cancer. I woke up thinking of her this morning, and here was your essay. Xo
Elizabeth, I wish you two could have had more time to enjoy your rekindled friendship. The 50s are a treacherous decade. At least four of my friends died of cancer before reaching 60. Then I started losing people faster, but it’s particularly shocking to lose people in the prime of midlife, when they have hit their stride personally and professionally.
I've thought a lot about this essay today. I had childhood friendships, but since we moved five times (twice to different countries), and I attended four different schools before I turned nine those friendships were truncated by physical, involuntary, and pretty final separation. The friends who stuck with me were fictional, Nancy Drew, Anne Shirley, Jane Eyre, all the children who traveled to Narnia and back, Mary Lennox, and Sarah Crewe. I could enter into their lives and take them with me no matter where I had to go. My longest standing friendships were forged in high school. My siblings, however, who were six and three when we made that one last move still maintain close friendships with people they've known since then. The different roads we travel, even in the same family.
It’s a privilege and an honor to stay on a reader’s mind. As for books, I too had a tribe of fictional friends, culminating with Holden Caulfield (whom I wrote about here a few months ago). It’s tough to be a sensitive child even if your family stays in one place. I can’t imagine the strain of all those moves that your siblings, being more easygoing, were able to absorb.
Dr Doolittle was my great friend, I had such wonderful adventures in his company!
ooh, yes! me too! Thank you for reminding me.
Beautiful. Made me feel wistful. You captured the cruciality of friendship in childhood.
Thank you, Christiana. I was a lonely child, a hardcore misfit. That’s how I learned to value friendship.
I admire the graceful ease of your stories but most of all the openness and feeling that sings through your words. I’ve written about friendship often in my books- written for children but really for the child in me, the child in all of us. Those longings for connection never go away. How we handle the roller coaster of relationships changes with experience, reflection and time but the longing will always be there. And the joy of meeting a kindred spirit is one of the great joys of life. At every age.
Thanks Rona —my friend.
For me every longing for connection, and every glimmer of its possibility, goes back to childhood. My current friendships draw from a deep well. I’m glad we’re friends.
Gorgeous.
Thank you, Elaine.
This was beautiful. It conjured up so many feelings and memories for me. As an aside, for three years I have had the words "coup de foudre" scribbled on a yellow piece of paper and taped to my office wall.
Isn’t it a wonderful expression? I’m glad to know you love it too.
It's hurt far more losing friends in my adult life than at younger ages. Or maybe it's just that the memory is fresher. Either way, what's left behind is an abiding sense of betrayal. I never had the option of knowing what it might've been like to have a sister, especially one who never gave up on me. Thanks for sharing this sweet, sad story, Rona.
Elizabeth, I had one terrible bust-up with a friend about a dozen years ago. In the aftermath, I realized this friendship had been on the brink for a multitude of reasons, not least the advancing alcoholism that magnified her toxic political views. She would be cheering for Project 2025. There was much to love about her, or used to be, so the explosive ending still hurt. I'm glad you enjoyed this story, even if your own experience was very different.
Every circumstance is different, of course, but the hardest losses for me have been those where the punishment of a blown friendship didn't seem equal to the crime. But I've been on both sides of that equation, so who am I to say? Thanks, Rona.
When I was a kid, my best friend was a girl who lived in the old manor house in our idyllic little village (one of those ones where there's a stream, and a C15 church, and a pond where Henry VIII supposedly lost his ring etc). We were like two tiny explorers! But then I was sent to a different school and we gradually drifted apart. I have completely lost contact with her now, which is strange because, for a time, we were inseparable!
If you and your friend are going to be tiny explorers, it must help to have a 15th-century church and a story of a lost royal ring. Maybe that’s my envy talking. Robbie and I made magic in a place with no legends but our own, with a dash of Peter Pan.
A wonderful essay that has me reflecting on my own childhood. I'm one of a twin, but if we ever held any sway over other children like the McClures I never heard about it. I guess I had friends growing up, but I never gave friendship a thought. Which makes your essay on the subject doubly interesting to me.
How interesting that you never thought about friendship as a child. Perhaps that’s because you didn’t have to think anout it. For some children it comes naturally and fades without pain. I was not that kind of child. Yet you were able to appreciate my story, rooted as it was in a childhood very different from yours.
When I was four and five years old I had a girlfriend who was a year older than me. She was foul-mouthed and aggressive and was always getting me into trouble. About five years later I had another girlfriend who was very different. She was demure, delicate even, and we used to love riding our bikes all over Northwest Buffalo and the suburbs further north. I remember spending a lot of time alone with these girls and they were from the opposite ends of the spectrum. Things ended with the mouthy, aggressive little redhead when my parents forbade me to play with her anymore. The older, shy girl and I just drifted apart. I can’t say that I ever had a crush on either of these girls; they just lived nearby and that was convenient. The shy girl and I just drifted apart, though she lived just down the street from me for many years afterwards. The last time I saw her she had been beaten around the face and arms and she was trying to hide the bruises with makeup. The other girl, the aggressive little five-year-old redhead, moved away not long after my parents told me I couldn’t play with her anymore. Her dad worked with my uncle and got lung cancer. My uncle worked close to our house and used to stop by for lunch about twice a week. Sometimes he told my mother how this girl’s dad’s treatment was going. The guy seemed to be doing well until the cancer showed up in his testicles and they had to be removed. He didn’t last very long after that. I’m sure there’s a story or short reminiscence in there somewhere but I’m not sure if I want to tackle it. Thanks, Rona,for spurring me to think about these girls and offering a place to briefly share my times with them!
Rafael, I read this comment after a long day of travel. Your memories revived my spirits. My greatest hope for these essays is that they’ll open doors for readers. I wonder if those long-ago friends ever think of you. It wouldn’t surprise me if they do.
Thank you for your kindness and sharing.
This story touched someplace hidden in me where I was saw the look of relief on the faces of the kickball team that was spared from picking me. Then I found my best friend, Patty, in sixth grade - not "besties," but close enough. Even though my family moved away 3 years later, we stayed in touch and visited across country. I dreamed of an adult friendship her - being in each other's wedding, sharing stories of pregnancies and motherhood. She died in her early 20's of breast cancer. Life goes on and mine became full of good things, but you took me back to how I felt during those moments of childhood aches. Thanks, Rona, for sharing you priceless gift of writing.
Gone so young. Rosemarie, I miss her beside you. And by the way, I too was picked last for every team.
Such grace in this story Rona. True friendship, however brief (or imagined!) carves itself into us, tilling the soul for everything that comes after. Those twins had nothing on you! Isn’t it strange how easily charmed we can be in our youth? I remember a mean girl from elementary school who always matched her socks to her top. I LONGED to be her friend for that reason alone!
Childhood is the wellspring of everything. I remember envying girls whose socks stayed up. Mine were hand-me-downs from my cousins, descending into my shoes. Glad you enjoyed this, Kimberly.
That last sentence is so beautiful.