Little Women

I got to go to lunch with my sisters today, minus Marcie, of course.  It was good.  We are so different with our life situations and jobs and out look on life even, yet we are so much the same in our love for each other and love for our parents and what they taught us.



I saw the new, contemporary  Little Women movie and wept.  I enjoyed the updated take on it and I had all of the feels.   I'm sure some of that was the movie starts with four sisters and one is sick and dies and then there are three.  Just like our situation.

I started thinking about my littlest sister Angela.  She is a worker bee.  She married a divorced man who already had three boys and together they have Preston.   Preston is not easy.  His skin disease- seborrhea- has really affected his perception on life and how others treat him.  It would be hard to shed your skin like a snake every night.   It would be hard for grade school kids to never want to sit by you or hold hands when the direction is to find a partner and hold hands.  This is his reality.  Angela is the perfect mom for him.  She is all about getting external help for him and also about  working on his internal dialogue and view of life.   I'm proud of her jumping in and loving all of these step-sons.  Even when they weren't receptive to it she just kept trying and holding space and feeling love in her heart towards them.  No judgment, just love.   Angela is a good wife for Guy too. She is interested in his hobbies and jumps into the Mustang club and riding motorcycles and camping.  She is his biggest fan.  She lets him be him and she continues to work on herself.

Angela was a drama teacher at BHS for many years.  She was actually one of my students when I was the drama teacher at BHS.  Angela continues to perform in productions at CPT and at Hope Box and she is full of energy on stage.    Angela is now a counselor for two elementary schools and she loves what she does.  She can channel her inner "Mom-Sheri" and help children succeed.

And then there's Elizabeth.  She likes to go by Queenie  or Liz.   Liz was always the cranky-child and angsty-adolescent and  then she turned into a marvelous adult.  When we tell the nieces and nephews about Liz's growing up years, they think we are spewing lies.   Liz is an award winning mortgage loan officer by day and by night she is a loyal wife,  an amazing friend to so many, a gatherer, and an athlete or atleast an athletic supporter of her Alison.  She makes the best donuts on Halloween from momma Sheri's recipe and delicious homemade salsa that she shares with so many.    Liz is as even and steady as they come.   She has figured out how to navigate her life with love and grace.  She cuts people a lot of slack around the "gay issue" and just continues to be her best self.  I don't know if her life has turned out how she thought it would as a child, but it's pretty great.

I'm so grateful to have these two sisters to go to lunch with.  They are my little women.
I know we are better together, and we are more alike than different; and when the  Cole girls  come together we can change the world....or atleast our little corner of it.