Women

Ny grandmother was very close to her four sisters. And while they were married to men who got along well and loved each other, it was those five sisters that connected them. If I can ever actually figure out how to do it, I will write a novel around those five sisters, their nine husbands, eleven children, four houses within walking distance (and one making up the Michigan cousins), family gatherings, birthday clubs, bunco, biscuits, brownies, and most of all, their laughter.

I don't think that I could ever do them justice, especially as I saw them through a child's eyes. I'm sure I would romanticize them and embarass them all the same.

A young bride loses her husband to pneumonia while she is pregnant, giving birth to a son who she doesn't initially wish to see, her grief is so great.

A woman nurses her mother through ovarian cancer, while the younger siblings are still at home. The mother is in such great pain one day that the woman runs to town to get more morphine, which the pharmacist dispenses without question.

A woman suffers through a marriage to a cheater, who contracts and dies from syphilis, leaving her alone with a son to care for. She remarries to a man who cherishes her and her family.

Their lives were 'The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood', and true. And they were there for each other through it all. I envy them their love for each other.

I picture myself as a link in a chain of women reaching back into time, women who lived from day to day. I wish I could do justice to them to enable them to live on in the hearts of others.