I'm Thankful for ... Long-Distance Love

(Nov. 23) -- I grew up with one sibling, a younger brother, and it wasn't until I was 16 that I discovered I had two half-sisters and a half-brother who lived with our father and his second wife -- just a Greyhound bus trip away. Back then, in the late '60s, when couples with children divorced, custody typically went to the mother, and when she remarried, her husband adopted the kids. At least that's what happened to my brother and me. We lost touch with our father for eight years until I got on that Greyhound bus and went to meet him again.

That visit, my three young siblings and I squeezed together on a backyard swing set seat made for two, danced to the Jackson 5 and played at a sandy turn in the river. My 4-year-old sister followed me everywhere I went, waiting for me outside the bathroom door and climbing into my lap whenever I sat down. My new brother, 7, watched me carefully and wasn't sure about this instant extra big sister. And the eldest, my 9-year-old sister, handled her change in status with aplomb, becoming my pen pal for years.

I sent them stickers, National Geographic books about animals and postcards from everywhere I went. We visited every couple of years for a few days around the holidays. But then I went off to college, eventually moved across the country and they grew up without me.

I missed their graduations from high school and college. I made it to one wedding but not the others. I was not there when their babies were born. We have not shared a holiday in the past 30 years.

Now, every five years or so, the five of us siblings reunite in Kentucky where they live, my brother and me traveling from California to see our father and his wife, this family we still don't truly know. Or maybe we know them in a different way; we siblings feel more like faraway cousins. We hang out together and try to get caught up. We are respectful of each other's opinions, careful around each other. But, in those few precious days, we never quite make up for all the lost time.

We don't have typical sibling history. We never lived through the squabbles, jealousies or physical fights. We've never been annoyed by each other, much less felt any animosity. We are idealized in each other's minds, perhaps, seeing only the good and admirable, not experiencing the more realistic side, the normal human foibles. Or if we do see those, they are so easily forgiven they are forgotten. We don't linger there. Nothing festers.

Last month my brother and I made a trip to see them again. Our father is 80, and five years is too long to go between visits now. We all had a dinner together, this time taking our official sibling portrait with cell phones. My half-brother and I hatched a plan to get our sons together to talk filmmaking, and for the first time in my life, I went to lunch with my sisters. We are peers now, the differences in our ages negligible. When it was time to say goodbye to each of them, the familiar regret at lost time and opportunity -- to be closer to them -- rose up, lodging in my throat until it burned. I tried to fan away the tears but could not. Our partings seem to get only harder.

Back home, Facebook keeps us connected and lets us glimpse our kids' growth. But when I see that my sisters have taken a hike in the gorgeous autumn woods without me, a new feeling surfaces. It's more than regret; it's the stirrings of envy.

My half-brother, who never writes more than a Christmas card, sent me a letter after I got back home. "We go for long periods without seeing one another," he wrote, "but when I see you again I feel that we are truly family. You are my sister and I love you."

Even we sisters don't say it out loud much, but this is exactly what I now know. That however our relationships have run their courses, from a great distance and over so much time, it is the one thing I'm sure of. For all of us, including the brother I did grow up with, the one with whom I fought and who carries the typical sibling history with me, it is undeniable. We are family, however that plays out, whatever it looks like. And for that, I am truly grateful.

Kathy Briccetti's essays and book reviews have been published in literary magazines, newspapers and anthologies. Her first memoir, "Blood Strangers," tells the story of searching for her place in her family's three generations of adoption and absent fathers. Read her blog on Red Room.


Thanksgiving Week Special: I'm Thankful for ...
We asked a successful businessman, a former soap opera star, best-selling novelists and other popular writers to share what they are thankful for this year. The articles will run throughout Thanksgiving week.

Monday: A Moment in September -- Jessica Barksdale Inclan
Monday: My Writing Life -- Meg Waite Clayton
Tuesday: Long-Distance Love -- Kathy Briccetti
Tuesday: The Cornucopia of America -- Tina Sloan
Tuesday: A Special Photograph -- Tim Wise
Wednesday: Garlic -- Crescent Dragonwagon
Wednesday: Expressions of Gratitude -- Jacqueline Winspear
Wednesday: All of My Feelings -- Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy
Thursday: Entertaining Strangers -- Pat Montandon
Thursday: Being Home Together -- Kerry Madden
Friday: The Chance to Give Back -- Wally Amos
Friday: A'isha, the Jewel of Medina – Sherry Jones