Sisters

My niece had a baby last week and I had the great joy of being there to photograph it. She wasn’t the first of my nieces to give birth but she was the first that I was able to be present with for a long day of labor and delivery.

Birth photography is new to me but I am so loving it. There is something so amazing about witnessing a birth but it’s also about capturing those beautiful moments between family and friends as they wait together and then celebrate the little one’s arrival. It takes on a whole new meaning when it’s my family though.

When I saw this interaction between my sister and niece I was quick to focus in and catch it with my camera. But it wasn’t until I got home and uploaded the images that I really saw what I had. It literally took my breath away. Because I saw my sister.

The sister who locked me and our little sister out of the house so she and the other older sister could do chores and make peanut butter balls.

It was the face of the sister who played school with us and taught me how to make these little Valentine people from paper hearts with accordion arms and legs.

The one who burnt the pork chops because she liked them crispy.

I saw the same love in that photograph that I remembered from the day she came to check me out of school when my grandfather passed away. She had my future brother-in-law pull the car over and then let me sit in her lap all the way home.

Most of those memories, and thousands like them tucked into my heart and mind, are of my sisters. Rarely are they of just one of them…they’re of all three of them.  Even now they play such a role in my life and the lives of my children. Being at volleyball games, texting conversations during America’s Got Talent with their nephew, texts and messages of sweet encouragement and funny stuff. Phone calls and prayers. No matter what they are right there whenever I need them.

I don’t have any brothers so I don’t know what that’s like. Maybe it’s the same. But what I do know is that my sisters, having sisters…being a sister, makes me the mom I am in way that I can’t really explain but just is.

I can’t imagine doing life without them.

Photo Credit Cindy Kay Photography

 Because of you, 

I laugh a little harder, 

cry a little less, 

and smile a lot more.

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