The Breadcrumbs Project: My Sister's Hand
My first guest post in this childhood home series, from Jaimee Kosanke
I am so unbelievably honored to share the first guest post in The Breadcrumbs Project series, written by Jaimee Kosanke. When I first read it, I found myself instantly weeping. If you grew up with brothers or sisters, the sibling bond is such an inextricable part of childhood memories, for better or for worse. There is no other truer witness, no other relationship quite like it. You share parents, homes, memories. Best friends, parents, and grandparents can come close, but it’s from a different vantage point. If you are fortunate as I am, to have a sibling who feels like a soulmate in some way, the connection may evolve over decades but stays strong.
I was so moved by Jaimee’s nuanced and tender description of her nightly ritual with her younger sister. It evoked memories of my own brother, but also, as the mother of two girls, the beautiful privilege I have of watching their sister bond. There is nothing like it. They fill roles for each other that literally nobody else can fill. Their connection is unique and sacred. As I watch them struggling right now in a difficult season of our lives and turning to each other for support and validation, this story feels even more resonant to me.
Read Jaimee’s gorgeous piece of writing, full of powerful subtext, emotion, and the incomparable connection of sisterhood below. On Friday, paid subscribers can enjoy reading an interview with Jaimee where we talk about the power of revisiting childhood memories, sibling connections over time, and what we choose to keep over the years.
My Sister’s Hand
by Jaimee Kosanke
“Do you think we’ll remember this moment forever?” I said to my sister Aja, two years my junior, as we sat on her twin bed perched at the windowsill waiting to spot something fascinating on the dark dead-end street of our NJ split level.
“Maybe we will because I said it out loud,” I answered my own question. We were undoubtedly up past our bedtime. We were routinely past our bedtime.
Our room was large. We shared it with two twin beds separated by a small nightstand. My father built a long shelf across the front wall that held our Cabbage Patch Kids. I held my favorite to sleep at night. Lu Lu Lani. We were the new kids in school having moved from Staten Island to New Jersey at age 7. I was an anxious child although I could not express that. I would take Lu Lu late at night and bang her peach plastic head against mine. If I could wake with a headache I could get out of school. I could watch All My Children and General Hospital and wait for my sisters to come home as I snuggled safely on the couch. That didn’t work once.
I was a sleepwalker. I know this because my parents would ask me what I remembered in the morning. I remembered nothing. With one exception. I dreamt I was the Lady on the Pedestal, the Green Goddess, the Statue of Liberty. I woke mid-fall from my nightstand to the floor hand above my head proudly presenting the desk lamp high above my head. Still no headache.
Aja and I had a salutation, a way to sign off the night with hopes of no nightmares. “Good night. Good night. I love you. I love you too. See you in the morning. See you in the morning.” We would say it twice every night. I would initiate it. If I was being a pest of an older sister, she might. And I would repeat.
Aja didn’t like the dark. Her night terrors would start later once we slept in different rooms. I pretended not to mind the dark, but I did. One of us would find each other cuddling up for protection in the other’s twin bed with matching generic bedspreads. Matching toy chests at the foot. We’d hold each other’s hands and one of us would squeeze their hand. If she reciprocated all was well. This could go on all night.
I would later repeat this with friends and lovers throughout my life. When the reassurance came, the gentle press back into my palm, the reciprocation without a question or explanation, when the love was returned, I’d recite the nighttime poem scribed by my little sister and me.
Jaimee Kosanke is a Live TV, Documentary, and Sports producer with 20-plus years of experience. A passionate storyteller in many mediums, she explores her journey through writing creative nonfiction and personal essays. She has been published in Newsday and the Village Sun. www.jaimeekosanke.com/.
If you’re interesting in having your writing featured as part of The Breadcrumbs Project, learn more about it here, and email me at steph.iz @ hotmail.com
Learn about The Emerging Writer’s Essay Workshop, a 2-part virtual writing workshop taught by my LTYM co-producer Megan Vos and I in honor of audition season. Details and registration here.
Stacey and I talk about impostor syndrome as writers as well as the upcoming essay workshop on our latest episode of The Mother Plus Podcast, and I read one of my personal essays, Maiden, Mother, Bitch, published in Mutha Magazine last spring.
 | A guest post by
|