Siblings and Best Friends

My siblings are my best friends hands down. There is a total of 7.5 years age difference between the oldest and youngest. My mother had the first three children within 3 years and 2 months. The baby lagged behind a few years. In the picture, far left is Leslie, Anita and Rusty.

Rusty will turn 40 in January 08....the baby.....I think we have finally let him grow up. Somewhere along the line, we realized that he was no longer 12. Rusty had it tough.....three women (Mother, me and my sister) in the family telling him what, when and where to do .....Consequently, he has made a very good husband!!!! LOL....he is used to being bossed around. He is great with his kids and does a ton of housework, laundry and cooking. Rusty and family live within 10 miles of where we grew up in Yazoo County, Mississippi.

Anita is the third born and will turn 44 in October and has two sons. Her first grandchild will be born in late September. It is a boy! Our family is so excited.....My sister had the first grandchild in our family almost 23 years ago! There was great joy and love to see our family grow in the next generation. Our Mother is still adjusting to the great grandmother concept! And of course we all take every opportunity to make her more aware of the situation. Anita and I share a very special bond and have been good friends since our early 20's. Within the last six months, Anita moved from Yazoo County, Ms to Lake Providence LA with her husband, 5 dogs, 1 cat and 1 horse . She is great at decorating and always has a project of some sort going on.

Leslie, the oldest, 11 months and 18 days older than me, lives in Brandon MS about 50 miles from where we grew up. He is someone that I trust with making decisions in my life and to look at them from a logical standpoint and help step back from emotions. I think we do that for each other. For about 12 days of the year, we are the same age. When we were very young, we would run around singing "we are twins" after I had my birthday. Leslie is divorced and enjoys riding his motorbike on cross country rides and is going to be a grumpy old maid!

That leaves me, second born, oldest daughter. I love my brothers and sister very much. My nephews tease us that we all have the same laugh and when we get together it sounds like a bunch of ducks quacking....and we all agree it does....but laughter is one of the things that keeps us close.

I hear so many people who speak of sibling rivalry and not being able to get along. We all have seen so many families fall apart after the death of a parent or loved one. We each say that will never happen to us......and I have to admit, the older I get, the more I pray it never does.....but the emotions brought on by death/tragedy can do strange things to our hearts. So we will continue to laugh together and know that if that day does come, we will work our way through it, just as we have worked through other stumbling blocks in our lives.