Simpkins sisters

Rita, Nan and Lo: Different faces of our family


With a few exceptions, most of my girlfriends don't have sisters, nor does my daughter Beth or my daughter-in-law Laurie. And here I am, lucky enough to have two! Believe me, I've learned to be grateful for something I had for years taken for granted.

Friends are a special gift, but sisters are something greater -- and more mysterious. We share family history, genes and experiences, yet we are often quite different people. Case in point: the Simpkins sisters.

Our Rita played the role of both big sister and mother to me and Lo. She is not a clone of Mom, but she is much more like Mom than either Lois or I. Our parents somehow expected more of her -- and not just more, but different things. She was accountable to them in an entirely different way than I was. Dad was hard on all of us, but he looked to his eldest daughter to take on the role of caregiver. She embraces the traditional and has become our family genealogist, our historian. And she may look "Simpkins," but she is more like Mom's side of the family -- steady, responsible and traditional.

Loie was both big sister and friend to me, watching over but not taking care of me. She is the least traditional of all of us, an improviser and an extrovert. There's nothing she's not ready to dive into, sometimes head-first and without testing the waters. She loves to figure things out and start new ventures. In that way, she is like our dad but without Mom's cautionary influence to hold her back. She's the "go-to" girl, the action figure in our family.

Having found the important roles in our family already filled, I was left to devise my own niche, to figure out a place where I could shine. I don't think I ever really did, but I encountered fewer roadblocks, since our parents were so busy caring for the family that I don't think they kept tabs on me like they did the others. I was, by default, permitted to just be, and that turns out to have been just what I needed. I have Mom's softer side and Dad's "question authority" side. I look more "Shafer," but I feel more "Simpkins.

Taken together, I think the Simpkins sisters balance each other very well. We're a package deal. Maybe in some mysterious way we even complete each other. On thing that was drilled into us is that we are responsible for each other: Sisters forever. Amen.