The Sisterhood of the Traveling SUV

Sisterhood is not always about being born to the same family. Sisterhood can also be a choice, a decision that you make to walk this life with another person who you have come to trust and love infinitely and to call her your sister.
My dearest friend Julie gave me this statuette. On the back it says: "We're always there for each other. We've shared sadness and triumphs, tears for joy and lost loved ones. There's been anger. There will be others in our lives who come and go, and times when we don't know where to turn. But we can always count on the Two of Us."



The Sisterhood are the women who you place around you in your life. The women who possess the attributes that you may be lacking, the women who are strong and levelheaded, the women who will always tell you the truth even when it's not what you want to hear. These are the women who you never have to watch your back with-there will never be betrayal.
The debts between you are too high to ever be re-paid.
The woman who got you your first real job that enabled you to support your children and buy the house of your dreams. The woman who knew that you may not be miscarrying despite what your OB said and held your new job for you while you laid on a couch for 3 weeks until the your baby was safe. How do you repay the life of your son?
These are the women who accept the responsibility of guardianship for your children in the event that you die, the women who held your hand through your divorce and told you that you were going to make it and stood beside you insuring that you did.
She will loan you any amount of money. She sends you a card on Valentine's Day so that you don't dwell on the fact that you are alone.


She has your children call her Grammy and promises to love them like her own because she is the same age your mother would be if she were still alive and she knows that they need her.
Their families becomes your family. Their parents hug and kiss you. Their mother makes your wedding flowers. Their father tells you everyday while you are pregnant that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.
You will fly anywhere, answer the phone at any hour of the night that they call. You sit behind her on a metal chair in the family section holding her coat while her mother is buried choking back your tears because you loved her too.


They stand beside you when you marry the man of your dreams. You raise your children together. They write the letters to your adoption agency telling them that you will be great parents to your new child-letters that bring tears to your eyes. There is no doubt in your mind that when you are 80 years old you will still be exactly the same as you are now-sisters.


Now, let me say that the sisterhood can also be comprised of women who are actually your sisters. My baby sister Andrea has been there for me my whole life. She has come to be with me after the birth of each of my children. She came over a thousand miles to stay with me during my divorce. She is ten years younger than me, so she was only 13 when she started to understand the importance of what sisterhood meant and she has never let me down.
And my sister-in-law Trisha who I have only known for 3.5 years is becoming someone who I go to in times of need. I wish that she were closer, I enjoy her company tremendously.


Why the Sisterhood of the Traveling SUV? My sisters are a distance from me, so in order to see them I have to load up my burgundy Yukon XL and hit the road.