Sister-Mother
I didn’t hear the Romanian orphan girls giggling that summer afternoon, didn’t see them with their brightly painted faces chasing each other around me. With one glance, my nineteen-year-old world shrank to one reality: on the other side of the plaza, a stranger was leading my younger sister by the arm into an abandoned building.
I was used to playing the role of sister-mother to both my younger sisters since the less than amicable divorce of our parents eight years prior. I thought I knew what it meant to put them before myself. Until Romania. Until that blindingly bright moment that would echo down through the years, carving selfishness out of my heart.
~~~
Under the looming shadow of our mother’s rushed third marriage, my husband and I made room. Late at night, the old wooden floors in our home creaked as my youngest sister tried to slip in quietly from another late shift at the restaurant, and we’d hold our breath, praying the baby didn’t wake. We knocked and whispered, tiptoeing around one another to share a single bathroom as our budget strained to accommodate the additional costs. The middle sister moved in as well. I stumbled over my attempts to keep giving, keep stretching.
How often I wished that things were different, for a world where sisters were sisters and nothing more. How much must I give them? How much could I? But the moments from those years wove themselves into an unexpected gift. Scenes where we perched on kitchen counters to talk late into the night, left encouraging notes out and meals kept warm for when one of us got home. The air in our little bathroom was full of humming and hairspray. My daughter spent her first years swimming in the love of her live-in aunts and slowly, very slowly, the size of the cost diminished when compared to the reward. We’d been given the unshakeable bedrock of each other.
~~~
The question asked in that terrifying Romanian moment was the same that would echo through the years to come and it has shaped me, in good ways and in bad: “How much will you sacrifice for them?”
At the edge of the plaza one second and then somehow at my sister’s side the next, I grabbed hold of her free wrist and locked eyes with the unfamiliar man. He paused, then his eyes narrowed and he gave her a swift, strong jerk.
Sister’s face went pale while my own heart slammed with adrenaline as I tightened my grip and shouted,
“NO!”
Our translator rounded the corner with a look of concern and the man finally released his hold. That night, the moon pinned its dark blanket over Bucharest and from the plane, we looked down at the glimmering city one last time. I glanced at my sister, safe in the seat beside me. One of life’s hardest questions had been asked. I’d answered. My heart carried the rhythm of that answer at 37,000 feet in the air. It carries it always.
Challenges/Points:
Sometimes there are seasons of life where we sacrifice by showing up for others in ways that aren’t necessarily healthy for us. Be gentle with yourself if you are currently living in a situation that puts you in that position. It isn’t your fault. You’re doing the best you can.
Trauma bonding is when we develop a deep, loyal attachment to a person who is abusing us or causing us great harm. This can be especially difficult for children or teens to navigate when a parent is the one doing the damage, as it is unnatural and very difficult for a child to detach from their mother or father.
If you are currently “filling the shoes” of an absent or unhealthy parent for your siblings, try to find one or two adults who can be stand-in father or mother figures for yourself. None of us can pour from an empty cup. Consider asking them if they would be willing to mentor you or meet up regularly so you have support as well.
Questions:
Do you feel like you are currently trying to “fill the shoes” of somebody else?
How might taking on roles we weren’t meant to play hurt us?
If you think that you may be experiencing trauma bonding with an adult in your life, is there a school counselor, therapist, or other safe adult you can talk to about that?
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