SIBLINGS

Standing in my sister’s sunny kitchen on Thanksgiving morning, I asked brother Ross, “Can you go out to the garage refrigerator and bring in the big metal pot filled with potatoes?” 

Then I looked at him again and thought, maybe not a good idea. 

He’s on the cusp of turning 81 and emails us daily poems using multi-syllable words that send me to the dictionary for clarification. But I’m asking a man whose Parkinson’s is beginning to challenge his gait and stability to haul in a 24-gallon stainless steel pot filled to the brim with sliced Russets priming for mash-dom.

So I turned to my sister Robin, who’ll be 83 next April, and whose fluffy halo of silver hair verifies her age. She stood there leaning against the counter and said, “I don’t need my cane this morning, my hip and back seem fine.” She’s recently given up gardening and golf to avoid agitating an increasingly sensitive sciatic nerve. She can’t bring in the potato pot either.

And me? At 79, I’m the baby of us four siblings.  (Our brother Robert was turkey-ing with his daughter and family in South Carolina.) Since my back operation a few years ago, I hesitate before lifting a ball point pen. I wasn’t about to carry that cauldron in from the garage either.

When did my siblings and I get so creaky? When did Ross develop a bald spot in his grey mane? When did Robin shrink two inches? When did driving at night become so damn difficult for all of us? What would we do without our morning-and-night Sunday-through-Saturday plastic pill boxes? Why do my upper arms resemble crepe paper? Why do I feel the need to hold onto the banister every time I walk down stairs?

I could answer those questions if my memory hadn’t gone south.

The thing is, when we siblings are together, we feel young and alive again. Just like when we were kids. We still vie against each other without an ounce of mercy in Rummikub and Russian Bank games. We can sing every Tom Lehrer song we first heard in the ‘50s. We write daily emails and messages to each other on our MacBook Airs. We read NEW YORKERS and share opinions about the latest Bob Woodward book. We devoured the Beatles “Get Back” documentary and remembered exactly where we were when they first sang on the Ed Sullivan Show.

We are not drooling. But we are drooping.

The morning after Thanksgiving, we three decided to sit down and discuss our “Exit Plans.” We talked about cremations and sprinklings. (Ross has selected seven locations! I’ve only chosen three.) We shared thoughts for post-funeral parties and various bequests. We all want to be there for each other’s send-off.  None of us is “ready to go first.” But none of us wants to be the last sibling standing, either.

Years ago I read words that stuck in my mind: “The greatest gift our parents ever gave us was each other.” 

Sure is. I will treasure that gift every day that I can. I just wish I could remember how we got that pot of potatoes into my sister’s kitchen from the garage. And how did we get it to the garage refrigerator in the first place?

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Here we are writing a song with Mr. Wonderful for my son Chris’ 50th birthday which we celebrated on Thanksgiving.

For the record, none of us remembered how we celebrated our 50ths.