Each of us makes our own internal, mental adjustments to accommodate the reality which we face. Sometimes, that reality is bitter and painful, and I think that all of us have faced a time like that to one extent or another.

My brother is five years younger than I and he remembers our fighting when we were young. Oddly, I do not remember much of that. Tonight we'd been talking about some technical matter and I was trying to help him out without putting him down. Suddenly he said to me, "Thank you. You make a much better Sister than Brother." What he said didn't really take hold for a while.

Has he finally accepted me unreservedly as a Sister? I hope so.

And that is how I live each day. Each day is a mild, almost cloistered, life of a woman in her 70s. It makes it all much easier to simply stop struggling and stop reliving the past and all my shortcomings. My Brother helped to cement that, and I am thankful.

Gwen