What Makes Women's History Month a Good Time to Celebrate Sisters as Well as the Sisterhood?

Women's History Month can be a good time to celebrate the sisters in your own family, in addition to showing love and support for the sisterhood in general.

After learning about annual Women's History Month, which comes around every March, I made a decision to devote a little more time and attention to the women in my life this month.

For me, that translates into finding ways to embrace and acknowledge my last two living siblings - my older and younger sisters.

If your family is anything like mine, there have probably been rifts and splinters throughout the years, that have made certain family relationships more strained than others.

Additionally, as girls blossom into women with their own lives and families to care for, this can sometimes slightly weaken the bond in family situations.

This is because, no matter how strong we love to believe we are, women often have a huge responsibility when it comes to successfully navigating between immediate family obligations, and those we once felt in our extended family roles.

Using Women's History Month to Reflect on Celebrating My Sisters

For those with passionate ideas about what Women's History Month should mean to other women, let me just say: This should be a time where we reflect on more than just the sisterhood that we share as girls and women.

No doubt, they have in mind, taking time to celebrate many great women who have gone before us, as well as the phenomenal women who are still among us. Not only do I agree, but I applaud those who do this.

I plan to get lots of reading done the remainder of March and read some of the stories being shared on both the Vocal and the Medium platforms.

However, for my first year of acknowledging this special month dedicated to women everywhere, I choose to focus on the women I care most about. My biological sisters.

At this point and time in life, I can definitely stand to embrace them a bit more. In many ways and for various reasons, we're not as close as we once were.

Once upon a time, before I had my own child, my older sister's three sons were my world, even after I got married.

My first five years of marriage, I still spent lots of time with my sisters, especially after being in and out of each others lives growing up in foster care.

As adults, we tried to make up for the time we missed, not all growing up together. 

However, five years later I gave birth to my son, and my younger sister had her first child six months after that.

Naturally things began to change with our relationships. 

While we were in the same state, everyone was busy living their own lives, so we spent less and less time together, and eventually, both sisters moved out of state.

Some readers might find this story familiar or at least similar to their own family dynamics.

Change has a way of forcing us to get with the program, and sometimes our programs are just to full to accommodate everything and everyone.

You call, you text, and you see each other less and less, and naturally no one is willing to accept blame for the disconnect.

This isn't just specific to my family. It's a human nature thing, because family relationships everywhere tend to encounter the same challenges - especially sisters.

Acknowledging the Women in My Family During Women's History Month

I've been pondering over the ways that I can embrace and acknowledge the two most important women currently in my family.

First there's…

My younger sister - just one year junior to my 67 years - lives in Chicago, near one of her four daughters and two grandchildren.

Whenever I finally reach out and call her, we spend the first 15 minutes arguing over who initiated the last call.

That's a little sister for you.

Besides the physical distance of her residing in Chicago and me in California, we've also had family situations and altercations that leave ruffled feathers, even when the air clears.

None of this changes the love and appreciation I feel for her, and for some reason, in the spirit of Women's History Month, I think I need to actually let her know that.

With current world events and this moment in history that we find ourselves living in, now is the time to have the hard conversations with loved ones, about whatever family drama or concerns you need to address.

Since I'm the sensitive one out of the three of us, neither of my two sisters do well with "mushy stuff", so I'll need to do something she'll actually enjoy or recognize as a major gesture on my part.

We both love music and when we were little we always "put on shows". I'm considering doing a video and mimicking some of her greatest hits from when she was little.

I know she'd definitely love it and get a kick out of being reminded what a brat she was. To give you an idea, feel free to take a peek at a story I share some years ago on Medium. Top 5 Annoying Things My Younger Sister Did When We Were Kids (Did your younger sibling ever annoy you by doing anything on the list you see here?)

Then there's...

My older sister - five years my senior - who is now back in California and residing in a nursing facility.

Doing something special for her will probably be a bit easier.

Even though her and I spent more years apart growing up than my younger sister, her and I are closer. We also share both parents, instead of just our mother, unlike me and my younger sister.

I already visit her every Thursday, and we talk on the phone off and on during the rest of the week, but I notice the calls are getting less frequent.

However, I know for a fact, if I were to pop up and pay her a surprise visit in addition to the regular weekly visit, she'd be elated. She loves surprises and she's not difficult to please.

She's also a huge fan of "Friends" and her and her three roommates spend a lot of their television hours watching the show.

For a while now, I've been thinking about creating a "word search" puzzle for her (something else she enjoys), based solely on the Friends series.

This month provides a great opportunity to show some extra love to the most important women in my life since my mom died.

As an adolescent and teenager, like most older siblings, she was responsible for caring for me, my younger sister, and my two brothers (now deceased). In our case, with an abusive and addicted mom, this meant more responsibility on her shoulders than the average teen - at least up until we were all thrown into foster care.

If ever there was a woman that I want to recognize and give a little extra attention to this month, it's her. She was a mother to me when I needed it most and I plan on being there for her until she leaves this world.

Final Thoughts

When Women's History Month was first established in 1978, I'm sure the intent was and still is, to help lift up and elevate the women in the world and the many complex roles we play in life.

Are there particular women in your life that you feel a desire to do this for? Well now is as good a time as any.

Why not use this month as a catalyst and spend some extra time and attention reaching out to a woman or women in your life, and let them know how important they are to you.

And don't worry. It's okay if it's just your sister.

This doesn't have to result in a grandiose gesture on behalf of your sibling(s). Not every gift of love requires a huge personal sacrifice, like in the case of sisters who became surrogates.

Just find a simple, yet genuine way to show them how happy you are to have them in your life - whether they happen to be near or far in proximity.

Thanks for reading.