Mi Hermanita: So Far and Yet So Near

She’s my kid sister, a generation younger, seven years that made our paths hardly cross as we grew in a chaotic family of eleven, counting mom and dad.

While I struggled with high school angst, she learned pencils and crayons and hopscotch.

My circle of friends was never a Venn diagram with hers, two orbs floating in spaces distinct from one another.

When I locked arms with my groom, she walked freshman hallways with trepidation, thin arms loaded with books and doubt.

As California beckoned and my first plane lifted me across the clouds, she slipped into a blue dress for her prom.

Babies swelled my belly twice, and her sailor husband kept her childless and alone while he navigated seas across the globe.

As my horizons spread like banquets before me, she went without work, without friends, without hope…
the years beating her spirit,
her husband stifling her soul,
her Texas town offering no options,
her body racked with disease.

1,500 miles stretch between mi hermanita  and me, fifteen-hundred years to overcome, fifteen-hundred tears to stem, so far and yet so near, so near and yet so far.

PowerfulLatinas.com contributing blogger Thelma Reyna addresses education, workplace issues, and topics related to this blog’s monthly themes. She’ll also write book reviews and occasional creative/literary pieces.