My Wonderful Siblings

 

As I am sitting in front of this laptop thinking about my next story,  I realize it is a very difficult one to write because it's about four great sibilings that I really never knew growing up.  My husband had three older brothers and one younger sister.  I also had three brothers and one sister but only  in comparison.  I only say that because he grew up with his siblings, and I didn't.  I loved our visits with the Ware family and the trips we went shared from time to time and how they would relate hilarious stories of their childhood, stories about their many moves, their Cajan father, the reckless things they did growing up and a little sister thrown  in the midst of four older brothers.  I never knew what I had missed growing up without  brothers and sisters until I heard these stories. 

I have only one picture to share of me with three of my siblings.  That is me blowing the bubble gum, of course, Kathy, Eddie holding Cookie, my dog, and Gary.  Ricky was just a baby at the time and was inside.  This picture was taken in the front yard of our Grandma and Grandpa Riddle's house in Muldrow in 1958.  I have no other pictures of me with all of my siblings together.  There was a note on the back of the picture I had written, "We were all trying to blow bubbles before Dad snapped this picture but I was the only one who was successful".  Well, that's one story I can relate.  Other stories might include the one or two trips when I visisted them in Arkansas and the fun times we had that week walking down the road to the little creek, hanging our barefeet over the side of the stream and harmonizing Everly Brothers' songs.  I don't remember much about that week except that Dad took us to a movie, we went shopping over in VanBuren, and Kathy and I played with Mom's makeup and did our hair.  They boys just played Cowboys and Indians as always.  I never got to share birthdays, Christmases, Easter egg hunts, Thanksgiving or Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, or had anyone to fight with over clothes, TV, use of the telephone, or record selection. 

Ricky, Ed, Kathy, Gary in 1985

Ron, Kathy, Jeri, Me & Ricky 2007

As we grew older, my siblings began to get reacquainted with me once everyone married and started families.   I really owe it all to my sister, Kathy, for doing her best to keep in touch and bringing me back in.   After I moved away to Tulsa, finished business school and started working, I kind of "forgot" I had a family.  Dad was still living at the time and as they would travel from Kansas to Arkansas to visit my Stepmom's family, they would drive through Tulsa in hopes of finding me at home, but somehow they always missed me--I was either at work or out with friends, and would come back to find a note on my apartment door that they had been by to see me.  She never gave up though and continued on her quest that I should become a part of them, because we were a family.  I love her and appreciate so much that she never gave up on me!  I told her that at our last sibling get-together in April.