Recently my sisters and their families came to visit.

The entire trip from landing to departure was entirely about our children, the cousins, and the pure joy they had being with each other.

The brother-in-laws got on extremely well.

My sisters and I acted the same as when we were the ages our children are now.

My sister, Robyne, a psychologist, came out of my bedroom, her arm adorned with my silver bracelets.

“Did you know you had these?”

I gave her an RU kidding look.  “Of course I now I have – notice the present tense? – that jewelry.”

“Oh, just wondering,” she said.

“You want them, right?” I asked.

She quickly nodded her head, as her eyes grew wide and a smile, like a rainbow, appeared. “You can have them,” I said, since I never wore them.

At Sea World, my new wide-brimmed hat got completely soaked.

My youngest sister, Heidi, was staring at me.

“It’s the hat, right?” I asked.

“It looks wet,” she said “Not that it doesn’t look good,” she quickly added.

“But it doesn’t look crisp, does it?” I asked.

“Not crisp,” she agreed.

“You want it, right?” I said.

“I want it,” she quickly added. I later gave it to her, along with a Movado watch that needed to be fixed.

Robyne, who fixes peoples’ psyches for a living, wanted to know why it was fair for Heidi to get my Movado watch. She asked this while gesturing with her own Movado watch on her wrist.

“Must I answer this?” I wondered.

“Unfair,” insisted Robyne.

“Look, you got ALL of Mom’s jewelry when she died and ALL of Aunt Natalie’s diamonds. Heidi got nothing.”

Robyne “claimed” this was untrue. Heidi and I gave her each other knowing looks.

“We all have nice watches except for Heidi. I’m giving her the Movado.”

That evening, my sisters, who give new meaning to the word “shopaholic,” insisted that we go purse shopping. Robyne had a slight stain on her five-month old Coach bag and asked the cashier if she could remove it. In so doing, Robyne pointed out that the woman only made it worse. Somehow, she not only walked out with a new purse, but in a different color.

“Do you know I got that purse for $60 less in Chicago?”

No, but somehow yes.

Onto Nordstrom where Heidi, feeling deprived with her no-name purse, was determined to get a deluxe one. Robyne had her Coach, I had a Prada, a gift from a friend, and Heidi had a cheap one. She eyed a Michael Kors. It was a little over three hundred dollars.

The people behind the counter and Robyne and I were pushing Heidi to buy it.

“I have to ask my husband,” she said.

We all screamed out, “Never ask your husband! That’s a sure noooooo!!!”

My husband, John, answered the phone as Heidi asked to speak to her husband, Bob, but not before my husband said to her husband, “It’s your wife. She wants to know how much money she can spend.”

John told me later Bob dropped his hand into the bill of hand and shook his head.

“Heidi, please. We’ve already spent a fortune on this vacation. Please, don’t do this to me.”

“We told you,” we all said to her, as she put the purse back with a sad face. I also pointed out that instead of buying four or five crappy purses, why not buy one really nice one, so she wouldn’t need to keep buying so many.

She’s a shopaholic. She can’t help it. She needs to keep buying them.

At home the boys were running around the kitchen island and snapping towels at each other, gym style, while the girls were in my daughter’s room playing with some of her five thousand stuffed animals. John and Bob were watching sports.

My sisters and I opened a bottle of wine and sat on the deck, staring at the last lights over Mt. Tam. It was our final night together. It had been a long, intense, non-stop week of vacation.  More importantly, it was time spent together. Other than my two best friends, I never laugh more than I do with my sisters, and nobody knows me better than they do.

Oh, sure, we fight. We’re sisters. But we love. Deeply. We act the same as we did when we were in single digits as we do now in advanced double numbers.

Next year we’re thinking about taking a family vacation on Cape Cod. I don’t know. I only know that when we’re together there is a familiarity borne through pain, suffering, misery, laughter, accomplishments and genuine pleasure in each others’ happiness.

Despite all that we’ve seen, all that we’ve done, when we are together, we are young again.

We remain children, just like our kids. I can’t imagine us ever growing up.

By Dawn Yun

Labels: By Dawn Yun, family fun, sisters

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