The Special Joys of Sisterhood Weekends

Growing up, I had the remarkable experience of being the eldest of eight children. The four that followed me in sequence were all brothers, and for nearly half of my childhood, I was the lone female child in a house full of testosterone.

You can imagine then, why I was so elated when I learned that child number six was a girl, as was child number seven. The age gap between me and them proved to be a bonus, as we bypassed the usual sibling rivalries. When I started dating boys, for example, they were still playing with dolls and stuffed animals.

Despite the age difference, with ten of us living in a small house, we three sisters shared a bedroom for many years. I loved to read the girls stories, play the latest hits on the transistor radio, teach them new dance steps, and watch them watch me while I put on makeup. I like to think that I was a role model of sorts, or at least, that they got a sense of what life might be like when they reached my ripe old age.

I left home at 18 for college and never returned (everyone in the family was kind of relieved; they had more elbow room, not to mention more time in the only bathroom). And although I missed everyone in the family, I especially missed my two little sisters. It was an ache that would stay with me long after I was married and had a family of my own.

The strong bonds that form among sisters are legendary, of course. The stuff of great songs, movies, and literature—everything from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, to “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. Like others, our shared history led us three to form relationships that are complex, empathetic, and sometimes emotionally charged. But I always knew that when things went awry, my sisters would always be the first ones there for me.

So one day, back in the early 1990s, when all three of us were back home for the holidays, we started talking about getting together more frequently, outside of the larger family gatherings. By that time we had husbands, and jobs, and children, and lived in three different cities. There never seemed enough time at family gatherings for the three of us to have the “chick-chats” we had once dearly loved. We agreed that we would try to carve out a long weekend, at least once a year, for just the three of us to be together again.

And so over the years, we’ve traveled to many different places—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Miami, Hilton Head, and Savannah, to name a few. Florida was often a destination in the winter months, and places like Toronto and Niagara-on-the-Lake, when it was warm.

We went on yoga retreats and luxuriated in spas. We played instruments in a music video (“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”) at Disneyworld’s Pleasure Island, pretending to be an all-girl rock band. At the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, we went up the Mayan Temple to the “Leap of Faith,” a 60-foot water slide with a terrifying drop through a shark-infested lagoon. We took a less terrifying boat ride in the Gulf of Mexico with a marine biologist, who taught us what life was really like beneath the waves.

Although the destinations were interesting and the adventures were fun, it was the late-night talks that made these experiences memorable. Although we three are very different people having led very diverse lives, when we come together we are like children again, sharing things we aren’t willing to share with anyone else. That level of trust only comes after years of openness, honesty, and emotional support.  

All three of us keep a box full of photos that memorialize our many sisterhood weekends, because they have meant so much to us. Some have said that love among sisters is the “greatest love of all” because of its emotional depth. So ladies, if you have a sister, hold her close and spend as much time with her as you can. These rare moments of togetherness are priceless, and worth whatever effort it takes to make them happen.

Moxie Gardiner is a writer, gardener, and traveler who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates, grows tomatoes, and enjoys a good online Zumba routine at home on winter evenings. Virgin Snow is her first novel, and she is currently working on Book Two in the trilogy.