Siblings

Separated
Being in Davao to attend to my Mom's final resting place, I was reunited with my sister who made the trip from New York. I haven't seen her in maybe 27 years. She was 12 perhaps when I last saw her - just an impressionable pre-teenager who already had strong opinions of her own. We haven't kept in touch either. She was a virtual stranger to me, with only genetics bonding us together. She's heard about me, and I've heard about her from other people - that's how we've known each other through the years. I even heard that upon arriving New York as a working adult, she started working as a barkeep but in less than one year, was already VP of Chase Manhattan Bank. That's the fastest rise I've ever heard of anyone who ever did New York. I'm not surprised - she's got chutzpah!

Absent
My younger brother of course was conspicuously absent from the gathering - we're just 3 siblings. I'm sure he has his reasons.

Picking up the Pieces
Now face to face with my sis, there wasn't anything to base a hug from. We just gave each other a polite nod and engaged in polite talk, perhaps gleaning from a distant past, something we could both hang on to to sustain our here-and-now. We're too similar - too proud, too headstrong...too uncompromising. With this reunion, we had to rebuild from scratch. I was more than willing to do my part...and I did. Now that she's back in New York, I don't know if we'll see each other again. At least we now send emails. That's a good start.

Life Goes On
It's interesting how the 3 of us live disparate lives. My brother plays with an obscure band and lives in a rough-hewn shanty. My sis is an upwardly mobile 'suit' living in New York's upscale Upper West Side. I'm the drifter who chose not to have a home, property or even roots. How did this disconnectedness come to be? Let's just say we were polarized. When the Red Sea parted, we ended up on different sides with our loyalties molded in the ensuing years according to our keeper's view. We never seriously fought - there was nothing to fight about. We just made the most of what we have to work with.

--- TheLoneRider

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