It takes a village – I’m sure most of us mamas have heard this saying one time or another. And especially over the last year when we’ve been separated from our villages, we realize how important they really are to us.
I was grateful that at the beginning of the pandemic shutdown, my safe bubble included my mom and sister. I don’t think I would’ve made it through those high-stress days at my job while also caring for my six-month-old without them.
In those early days, I came to my sister and apologized to her. It took a global pandemic, shutdown and the most stressful period of my life to realize just how much I wasn’t there for my sister when she had her first child.
My sister is 3.5 years older than me, and we have always been very close. But time and life and distance have played their roles over the years and we’ve ebbed and flowed away from each other and back together again.
It took me having my own child to really understand what my sister went through postpartum and how much I didn’t support her. Now, there’s another saying that holds true here – you don’t know what you don’t know. I couldn’t know the daily mama struggles she faced, the phases, the sleeplessness, the loneliness, etc. until I experienced them myself. But still, I wasn’t proud of how little I knew of or remembered from my sister’s own experience having her first child.
A few months into the pandemic, she announced she was pregnant with her second. And I vowed to her that I would be here for her more this second time. Now that I knew, I would be a better support. My sister was a rock for me during my first pregnancy and after I had the baby. She would take every single phone call, no matter the time of day. She would listen and comfort me, giving me advice only when I asked.
The sad truth I realized this time though, is that again I would have no idea what she was going through. I’ve heard going from one to two children is difficult. But this is the struggle when you’re the younger sibling and your older sister always goes first. I will always be second. I won’t be able to understand or give advice to her in these coming weeks and months and years.
This has always been the case between us. I’ve avoided a lot of hurt and pain simply because my sister experienced it and let me experience it through her, softening the blow I would’ve felt myself. And while I have set my own paths and had my own experiences, it has always been through a lens of what I learned from my sister.
When I decide to have my second child, I know my sister will be right there to help me through it, because she will have already walked that path. All I can do now is do what I can do with what I know.
I can listen. I can help her. I can be there. Because my sister is my village and I am hers.
