As a sibling, you know your brothers and sisters instinctively, intuitively, subconsciously. You know them in ways that words cannot describe.

-David Maraniss

My mental state is flagging and my body aches as I stand on the nighttime platform and wait for a metro purported to materialize in 17 minutes. The two worlds hold no appreciable connection, but for some reason right now is the moment where I am thinking about my oldest sister.

While my daily thought structures often brush over and in between each of my four siblings, there is one recurring observation that always pushes to the foreground when the arrow stops at this particular sister. She gives me pause because all of my life, I have been in complete and utter awe of her incredible displays of strength.

I’m thinking about my cousin’s funeral now, held just a few short months ago but really it feels like last night’s bad dream. The event was a bewilderingly short affair, and my siblings and I sat in the front family pews as smarting members of my mother’s remarkably small family tree.

Towards the end of the service, the moment finally came along where mourners were invited to step forward and deliver a few words on the life of the departed. It’s a gesture that when put to any person is understandably difficult- but when you apply it to the taciturn mores of New England folk, it’s a practice that becomes damn near unheard of. We sat there waiting until at last someone from the overflowing crowd stepped forward to present a few brief and difficult words. After that five second flash, there was nothing. Silence.

At this point in the service, the long pause transforms into a visceral sense a shock that is pulsing through the air. My God- among all of these people, is no one else going to stand up and make something of this ridiculously brief gathering? Are we all so self-involved in our anguish that we’ll collectively allow this moment to slip away with a near automatic and struggle-free surrender?

And then, there is movement.

“Shit” is the audible word uttered at my immediate left. The whisper escapes comes from my other big sister, and this one word synopsis is enough for me to understand everything that is now unfolding- even though my view is obstructed. The power of siblings in their ability to convey so much by saying so little.

Our Oldest is making her way to the center of the congregation. She looks like she’s been broken in two and is perhaps even a bit pissed that once again she must carry the water for so many others who will not- or cannot- do exactly what she is now doing. But her feet know her heart, and I am willing to bet that they started moving well before her brain doled out the command to stand and make her way out from sanctuary in the pews.

Shit said my other sister. She had said it because like me, she knows what our big sister is capable of- and while this family representative is now coming forward to do something so incredibly difficult yet important, it is something that the rest of us could not find the strength to do.  

Shit because in doing what she is about to do, she is going to wield her oldest sisterly power over our family stoicism and finally reduce us to basic outpourings of grief. A release of emotion on her signal, and we allow her do it because we trust in her strength.

She speaks. She speaks with almost no voice and an excess of emotion. She talks to the congregation with a brutal honesty that most clergy strive to circumvent over the course of an entire career. We are in tears. The family members in the front rows. We the attendees who found it impossible to walk even ten paces to go stand up and cobble together a couple of incomprehensible words. As usual, she did it for us. That is her strength. She is well aware of and succeeds at her charge as the oldest.

I’ve been thinking about this tonight after reading a short essay that reflected on the death of a writer’s sister. It is touching and painful in its description, but it also reminds me of the power that we may or may not have when it comes to getting through something so humanly hard.

In the days following the funeral, I tried to tell my sister how grateful I was that she had plucked up the courage to stand and say words that dozens of others found impossible to formulate. Of course she brushed off the commendation with the counter observation that none of her testimony came out like she had wanted. She is crazy for saying this, but I understand her response.

We are ever the self-criticizing types who will never accept anything more than begrudging thanks for masterfully executing the impressive feats of our personal capability.

I have no place speaking in front of any number of people- nevermind assuming some station that places me standing before the urn of a far too young family member. Whether she agrees with me or not, my oldest sister does belong in these crazy places of excessive burden, because she kicks ass. She’s our strength. And she belongs in every situation where there is nothing to do except the hardest thing. So I’ll keep waiting for my train, and tell my complaining body to suck it up a while longer.