There was never any question that if I were to have a wedding, my sister (I’ll call her M) would be my maid of honor. In spite of several disagreements throughout the years, some of which lasted longer than either of us probably expected (in our family, with age comes stubbornness), my sister and I have always been close.
Our girlfriends without sisters often remark how lucky we were to have each other. We know it too, understanding their envy even as we bicker and say the kind of hurtful things one can only say to family (and have them love you, regardless).
I’ve adored M since I was young. The afternoons when I arrived home from Kindergarten only to learn that M was napping and couldn’t play with me until she woke up were sad days, indeed. As we got slightly older, one of our favorites past times was not only watching Beaches (a story of true friendship if there ever was one), but reciting the entirety of certain scenes. We actually still do this on occasion (I am the Bette Midler character while M plays Barbara Hershey’s role), and we also sing duets of cheesy ’80s love songs—quite loudly, much to our parents chagrin—even though we cannot carry a tune. There are exactly two people I can say anything to, and M is one of them.
Our differences were never great enough for me to question M’s place in my life. We played with our Barbie dolls with an animated devotion, but our dolls were breaking curfew and getting busted for it. They weren’t planning their weddings, and neither were we.
In fact, for a while, I was convinced that I didn’t believe in marriage. It wasn’t for me. I didn’t need a piece of paper telling me I was bound to another. The kind of love I’d have wouldn’t require such an institution. I held all kinds of lofty beliefs and wasn’t afraid to talk about them to anyone who’d listen.
And then I found my person. After a couple of years of dating—surprise— I’d changed my tune entirely and couldn’t wait for Steve to ask me to marry him. I could not wait to be His Wife.
When we got engaged, no one but M reminded me of my past way of thinking. She didn’t do it right away or even very directly. But after some weeks had passed and the news of our upcoming nuptials was no longer fresh, M (unthinkingly? Inconsiderately? Rudely?) made a couple of hurtful jabs—about I used to think getting married was ridiculous, about how I never wanted a wedding and now look at me, planning a regular old wedding just like everyone else.
I had already asked her to be my maid of honor, and as Steve and I weren’t having a traditional wedding party—just a best man and a MOH—it was a pretty big deal to me to have her by my side. She accepted, though she made no secret that she found my tearful proposition pretty hilarious.
I don’t remember when M asked me to be her maid of honor some six years earlier, but I do remember the moment she told me that she and her husband were separating and planning to divorce. A week later, with the help of two “man-with-a-van” hires, I helped her move from their shared one-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom apartment a few avenues over. I bought a six-pack of beer and the kind of toilet paper she liked, and I set about organizing her side of the medicine cabinet in an unfamiliar place that she was preparing to call home.
Later, we sat together on her bed, eating pizza and finishing the last of the beer. I gently suggested that she might not want to keep framed photos of her and her ex on display; she rebuked me, telling me that I had no idea what she was going through, that they made her feel better right now.
She was right. I had no clue. I hadn’t been married for five years. I wasn’t watching my marriage unravel. I wasn’t looking at the pieces that had made up my life for the past ten years and watching them no longer fit together.
I’d stood by her side on the day she said, “I do,” proud big sister, ecstatic that she’d found the one, her true love, her soul mate.
After years of listening to me turn my nose up at the very idea of getting married, I suppose it was brutal for her, in the middle of her marriage breaking up, to listen first to my musings about when Steve was going to pop the damn question, and then to my elation over the engagement and everything that went with it: the ring, the wedding dress, the venue, the photographer.
While I understood, of course, that it must be difficult for her on some level to embrace my happiness, to be my biggest wedding-planning cheerleader, a part of me still hoped she would rise to the challenge. And yet, was it even fair to ask her to?
I proceeded with caution. Tentatively, I asked her if she wanted to go to my first dress appointments with me. Yes, yes, I’ll be there, she said enthusiastically, but I wondered if her enthusiasm rang false.
I said yes to the dress with my mom, and not my sister, in tow, and when I Instagrammed the moment (the celebratory Champagne moment—not the dress), M disdainfully asked if I’d really just posted that I’d said yes to the dress? “Who are you?” she asked and laughed in spite of herself.
Weeks later, after I addressed a question on FB to my married friends about the virtue and value of professional makeup, M texted me to say she couldn’t believe I’d just started a FB post with “Married ladies…”
I defended myself but wondered what the point was. She was obviously going through one of the hardest times of her life. Why should she put on a happy face for me of all people? Deep down, I knew she was excited for me and for Steve. So what if she didn’t act like it 24/7?
It’s easy for me to be cocky and assume that Steve and I will be together forever, no matter what obstacles we face, no matter what challenges life brings. Yet M did not have an inkling of her future when she donned the white dress and recited her vows. In spite of all of her happiness for me and my joy, she knows something I don’t know: not everything works out the way we imagine. But her unnecessary comments to anything remotely “bride-y” that I did began to grate on me, and I finally told her so.
“I’m sorry. You were just never a wedding person. It’s weird. I’m trying to get used to it,” she responded. I didn’t say anything back.
After a couple of hours of silence on my end, she issued a more sincere apology and promised to lay off the wedding chiding. I doubted she’d be successful.
To her credit though, she has. My first fitting is in a few months. “If you can’t make it, I totally understand,” I said to M, who said she wouldn’t think of missing it. Plus, she got the ball rolling with plans for my bachelorette weekend. And when we’re together and the wedding comes up or I share a story about Steve or a memory, she nods thoughtfully and says she can’t wait to find a way to get that into her speech.
I haven’t been reminded of my former way of thinking about marriage, and when I sent her a picture of the fancy wedding shoes I bought at Saks 5th Avenue last weekend, instead of saying something about the cost or how she can’t believe that I’m the kind of bride buying shoes like that, she told me she loved them. Said they were perfect. In those simple words, I realized that M was on my team. She’d be there for me as she had always been, regardless of her own pain.
