It is getting harder and harder to be with my family. Every year, my sisters and I get together for dinner on the Sunday after the New Year’s Eve. During the year we lack the time to be together, so we take this day to get together and remember that what binds us together is sacred. This year the dinner is at my house, so I had to get up early, while David and the little ones were still asleep, to go prepare everything.
I make sure the dinner is perfect, the cooking is well seasoned, the appetizers are ready on time, the house is very clean, the kids are tidy and David is tidy. It sounds easy, but the task of a housewife is very difficult, even more so when you have four children: Mathew is twelve, Sophy is nine, Hank is five, and John is two. They are all very different, from Sophy, who is completely restless, irascible and rebellious, to Mathew, who is a peace of soul who already helps me take care of his siblings, to Hank and John, who are very similar even physically, some people swear that one is the slightly older version of the other, always very attentive to everything that is going on, often without saying a word, but extremely assertive. They take after their father, who especially at these family events is very quiet, watching and carefully choosing the sentences he says. I know he does it because of me, that he is insecure and knows how important these family gatherings are to me. Even more, I just have to be thankful for how lucky I am to have him: an extreme father and a generous provider of the home.
How I miss my sisters, Helen and Joan, as during the year I hardly see them. As our parents passed away and I am the older sister, I feel responsible for both of them, but the most I can manage is a weekly phone call to each of them, where I get to know very little about how they are doing. Helen, who had the misfortune of being a single mother and now has to raise George, a ten year old little devil who looks just like his father, whoever he is. When he comes into the house with those unpredictable haggard eyes. First it was our siamese cat, the stupid things he used to do to with him, from putting him in the washing machine on the spin program, to trying to hang him by his tail on the clothesline. Then it was our poor fish, when he put detergent in the tank and choked to death. I know that everything you do is to get attention. I can imagine what it must be like to grow up without a father, no matter how hard his mom tries to replace him. Poor sister Helen, with whom I have such affection and when we talk on the phone, we stay for hours telling each other the news, something that would be impossible with Joan.
Joan is by far the most beautiful of the three of us. She has the green eyes of our grandfather Adam, the eternal leading man of the family until he died at eighty-five from a sudden heart attack. Besides dressing impeccably, she religiously goes to the gym every day. Very different from me, who has made dozens of attempts at different gyms, but can’t go because of the kids’ schedules. In fact, it is very different being a mother with a lot of work on her hands - than being a carefree single woman, on top of that with five years less than me. What I least approve of her are the diverse and superficial relationships she has, not looking for anything substantive in the boyfriends she gets. I suddenly remember the university student, ten years younger than her, the surf teacher, carefree and unconcerned with life, the writer, who has never written a hit. And it’s a shame, because besides being attractive, she has the maternal qualities that it takes to raise a family: you can tell by the way she deals with my children, it’s a firm but a companionable aunt. Too bad she doesn’t spend much time with them. In fact, I think men are afraid of her success, so young and already at the top of her career in a marketing company.
At dinner tonight, I just hope the two don’t fight, they who are always tackling on whatever stupid reason. I think that being separated by only two years difference makes them clash more easily, because this is a factor that can bring them together or pull them apart. I feel like there is a competition in the air whenever they are together, a kind of race that each has to win and prove I don’t know what. It will be difficult, between controlling the kids and promoting peace between the adults, but in the end of the day it is always worth it.