Part of going home is family; when you've been gone a long time and perhaps you've changed a lot, it can be very hard.

There are no family pictures here, yet; this trip home was a time to rebuild, and that certainly meant time to put the camera away and leave it there. It was time to say goodbye to the old family home, which has been sold, and remodeled, and is for sale again. It's changed some, and remained the same in other ways, but at least it's still here and can still be a link to the past and present, to self and family and friends.

But that wasn't the point, not this trip.

What was important this time was to spend time with my sister. We were very close when I was growing up, much more than you might expect given our age difference of 11 years. She moved out, got married, and started her own family while I was still very young; that's really where our close relationship began. She never lived far away, so I was a convenient (and cheap) babysitter. Which was fine with me; her kids were great (and they still are). I was a convenient messenger when something needed to be carried to or from my sister. She was my piano teacher. Before long, she was more of a mother to me than my own mother ever could be; when it was not safe to be at home (as was often the case), my sister's home became my second--and far safer--home.

That closeness continued long after childhood. Families can be made from blood or from choice, but together they make an enduring bond. Her kids grew up and had children of their own; our parents aged and died; we had our own growing to do, coming out from our parents' shadows. We stayed close; we knew what was going on in each other's lives; we talked.

So what happened? I changed. If you've read much of the rest of my site, you know about that. I haven't changed that much, not really. But people's perceptions of change are different, and looking back now, it seems that my changes may have caused my sister to question everything about our relationship. Given that her relationship to me was part sister, part parent, part teacher, that covered a lot of ground!

To complicate things, we don't live near each other, and we neither of us travel much any more. Years passed, and neither of us knew where to start bridging the gap that had formed between us. My brother tried to help, but distance didn't help there, either.

Early this year, when I found out that my high school class was doing another reunion, I decided it was time for a real reunion--with my sister as well as with old friends. It meant pushing a bit, and I know that caused some real stress for my sister; it wasn't a risk that she was ready to take.

So what did we do? We had lunch, a quiet picnic lunch in a secluded park. That was a safe thing to do; she could leave if she wanted to, and if she felt uncomfortable meeting me, well, no one else would know. But she didn't leave; we ate and talked, then talked some more. When it got too hot to keep sitting there, we drove around for a while and talked some more. We talked about family, about friends, about places, about change, all kinds of stuff. We talked about Queenie Rand and all the other old town scandals. She showed me the new church that had split off from our old one. (My father used to joke about how the Baptists used to have big fights, and would split off to form a new church; I guess the Methodists don't have room to talk like that any more.) The central tower of the new church looks like a big mustard pot; we decided that all it needed was to have a big spoon sticking out of it.

But mostly we just got to know each other again, and learned some important things along the way.

It's good to spend time with the people we care about. We don't do enough of that.

People don't change as much as you think they do. Sometimes that's good! Even when people do change, it doesn't have to change what's past, or what's shared, or what matters to each of us.

We learned that we really do want to stay part of each other's family, and that we wanted to do all this again--without waiting so long next time.

There's more, of course, but I think that's enough for right now and right here. Even if I do make parts of my life public, family is still personal and private, and that's the way it will stay. It's enough to say that this was a very special day, and for all the change, some good things still hold true.