Sisters

Ara Mina and Cristine Reyes aren’t the first pair of sisters to take each other to court, but reading about their legal tussle was a desecration of sorts of a sacred bond. It was like a sacrament  not unlike marriage  that was being assaulted (without judging who’s right or wrong). Like Kramer vs. Kramer. Or in real life, Arroyo vs. Arroyo, Ortigas vs. Ortigas.

Unlike husband and wife, there is no contract that binds sisters. Sisters cannot divorce each other, or have their sisterhood legally annulled. What binds sisters is irrevocable, irreversible  living blood. Doctors can always tell, with lab tests, if two people are sisters. But they cannot tell for sure if two people are spouses. There will always be incontrovertible proof of sisterhood.

Former President Cory Aquino once told me her father had told Ninoy, then her suitor, that he will always have competition for her attention — because she and her sisters were very close.

Ballsy Cruz also once told me her best friends are her sisters — Pinky, Viel and Kris. The Aquino sisters are a formidable force, and the last elections showed that their unity could move mountains. They fanned out throughout the archipelago to help their only brother Noynoy Aquino, a bachelor and an orphan, win the presidency when they committed themselves to his cause.

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Last Saturday, at the joint birthday party of my cousins Karen Loleng Parungo and Aimee Loleng Ferrer, and Kit Mayor Ravana, I sat beside my sister Valerie Sotto for most of the evening. My cousins remarked that it seemed Val and I had not seen each other for a long time, as we were talking like best friends and high school classmates though we are 6 1/2 years apart. I am the eldest and she is the youngest of our parents’ (Frank and Sonia Mayor’s) four daughters.

Well, Val and I had not really seen each other for ages (about 45 days), as she had been out of the country for two weeks and we are both busy career women. But even if we had only seen each other yesterday, we would always have things to talk about. My sister Dindin, who is a psychiatrist based in Philadelphia, seeks advice from Val when she needs it. Because like my mom Sonia, Val has this gift of making emotional boulders feel as light as cotton candy.

Val had just gone on a trip with Dindin. But we both have not seen our other sister Mae, who had migrated to the US in 2009, since our father’s burial in 2010. We agreed that we missed her so. Mae, Val and I had always been a three-legged stool here in the Philippines as Dad, Mom and Dindin lived in the US. 

Mae is funny, organized and dependable. When Val’s kids planned to “run away” from home when they were pre-schoolers — they were going to run to Tita Mae’s house with a stick and a cloth pouch at its end. Tita Mae was going to be their refuge after their tampo with their parents. We always tease Mae that she is kuripot but she is very generous with her affection and her loyalty. She is the one who took upon herself the unspeakably painful task of buying my baby Joanna’s first baby clothes — the one she was going to be buried in. Joanna was born prematurely and died a few seconds after she was born. I was too weak to buy her clothes for heaven.

Now, it’s just Val and me here in the Philippines and there’s an empty space in our heart for the sister whom we always thought would be by our side (the third leg of the stool).

Once, on a trip to Legazpi City in Albay, which has a magnificent view of the Mayon Volcano’s virtually perfect cone and where my sisters and I lived for a year, my husband Ed told Val’s son Miguel: “That’s why the Mayor sisters are volcanic.”

Indeed we are. We have tempers, but when we simmer down, we really simmer down.

My son Chino calls us “perky.” Well, we are hardly ever quiet. When we were virtually slain by the news that our Dad had cancer of the pancreas, and was scheduled for a life-threatening operation, we all put our lives on hold to be by our parents’ side. Mae, then Val, then I, flew from Metro Manila to Anaheim, California. Dindin flew to Anaheim from Philadelphia. I was still in a cast after a foot fracture (The cast was taken off on the day of my flight to the US), Mae and Dindin also had temporary health issues. But we all headed for the place where we were needed most.

In the days before Dad’s surgery, we all slept on a mattress in the living room of their one-bedroom apartment, with the door to the master bedroom slightly ajar so we could hear Dad if he needed us in the middle of the night, so that Mom could sleep more soundly. We would talk and giggle till Dad would say sternly but fondly, as if we were teenagers talking about crushes, “Hoy, matulog na kayo!”

 He enjoyed having all of us, his primary family, under one roof and asking us to behave when we were rowdy, like kids. When we planned to alternately stay in a nearby hotel so he could have more space and quiet, Dad told our Uncle Caesar Reyes that he wouldn’t hear of it. “Gusto ko, nandiyan lang sila sa tabi ko.” 

Mom, my sisters and I all checked into a hotel near the UCLA hospital in Los Angeles on the eve of Dad’s surgery, until the day he checked out. The surgery wasn’t successful. We were all in one room with Mom when the surgeon told us, “Six months to two years.”

Dad died 10 months later. In those 10 months before he breathed his last, at least two of us sisters were by his side. My three sisters were by his side in his last moments while I rushed from Manila in hopes of being able to put my cheek against his beating heart one last, precious time. But I arrived in the hospital about eight hours too late.

My sisters and I had been through many happy times together, now we were all putting our shoulders under one big cross, trying to make it through our Calvary. The last time we were all together, it was to bury our father.

My sisters and I do fight and disagree and argue, but if you go against any one of us, you will have a mob descend on you. We know we can always count on each other — not just when we have a cross to bear, but also when we have laughter to share. We’ve had more good times than bad, and that’s because we are sisters.

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The following essay on sisterhood (author unknown) was forwarded to me by my sister-in-law Peewee Ramirez Lareza:

A young wife sat on a sofa on a hot humid day, drinking iced tea and visiting with her mother. As they talked about life, about marriage, about the responsibilities of life and the obligations of adulthood, the mother clinked the ice cubes in her glass thoughtfully and turned a clear, sober glance upon her daughter. “Don’t forget your sisters,” she advised, swirling the tea leaves to the bottom of her glass. “They’ll be more important as you get older. No matter how much you love your husband, no matter how much you love the children you may have, you are still going to need sisters. Remember to go places with them now and then; do things with them. Remember that ‘sisters’ means ALL the women... your girlfriends, your daughters, and all your other women relatives, too. ‘You’ll need other women. Women always do’.”

“What a funny piece of advice!” the young woman thought. “Haven’t I just gotten married? Haven’t I just joined the couple-world? I’m now a married woman, for goodness sake! A grownup! Surely my husband and the family we may start will be all I need to make my life worthwhile!”

But she listened to her mother. She kept contact with her sisters and made more women friends each year. As the years tumbled by, one after another, she gradually came to understand that her mother really knew what she was talking about. As time and nature work their changes and their mysteries upon a woman, sisters are the mainstays of her life.

After more than 50 years of living in this world, here is what I’ve learned. This says it all:

Time passes. Life happens. Distance separates. Children grow up. Jobs come and go. Love waxes and wanes. Men don’t do what they’re supposed to do. Hearts break. Parents die. Colleagues forget favors. Careers end. BUT... sisters are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. A girl friend is never farther away than needing her can reach.

When you have to walk that lonesome valley and you have to walk it by yourself, the women in your life will be on the valley’s rim, cheering you on, praying for you, pulling for you, intervening on your behalf, and waiting with open arms at the valley’s end.

Sometimes, they will even break the rules and walk beside you... or come in and carry you out.

Girlfriends, daughters, granddaughters, daughters-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, mothers, grandmothers, aunties, nieces, cousins and extended family: all bless our life!

The world wouldn’t be the same without women, and neither would I... When we began this adventure called womanhood, we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.

Every day, we need each other still.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)