Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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Aging parents bring new clarity to the relationships you have with your siblings. Long gone are the days when my brother and I would wrestle on the bright orange carpet in the basement. If we tried wrestling now, someone would need to help both of us get up from the floor. Sometimes I’d win but it felt like he took pity on me because he’s three years older. Our bouts usually ended up with him farting on my head and me yelling “Maawwmm!” while he laughed his guts out.
My sister always managed to escape such tortures – she’s the classic responsible oldest child who knew better than to get sucked in by his provocations. I wasn’t as clever. His goading only made me more determined to show him who’s boss. Thankfully our wrestling matches have given way to much more civilized interactions.
About 10 years ago when our parents were well into their 70s, it occurred to me that I only saw my siblings at holidays or at our parents’ insistence of a family dinner at their home. Sure, we talked via text or FaceTime, but our in-person gatherings were driven by an annual date on the calendar or parental guilt. And with every family member in attendance, we weren’t spending quality time together.
As we’ve seen with our parents, aging isn’t easy. It’s clear to me that we are going to need each other more and more as our hair gets greyer and our wrinkles more plentiful.
To that end, we started a new tradition: sibling dinners (spouses are included in my definition of sibling). The rules are simple: no parents, no kids and we take turns hosting. It’s a single generation enjoying each other’s company over a nice meal and a fair bit of wine. Just because. We try to have dinner three times a year. Life often gets in the way of this schedule but we’re all pretty good at nagging the next host to suggest some new date options.
At each dinner, we make sure our parents aren’t the only topic of conversation. That’s the whole point of us getting together. There will come a day when they won’t be the centre of our collective attention, so we need to be able to maintain healthy relationships with each other in their absence. After we catch up on Mom and Dad, we talk about things like our nieces and nephews, politics, careers, retirement, streaming recommendations, vacation plans and of course, our own growing lists of aches and pains.
In between dinners, we chat regularly via FaceTime and a years-long group text thread, where the bulk of our communication happens.
A lot of my friends have aging parents of their own so when we get together, the conversation is usually part therapy session, part advice exchange. We share how our siblings are pitching in – or not in some cases – as well as advice on everything from how to purge stuff after selling the family home, to how to manage all those doctors’ appointments. (Tip: Create a Google spreadsheet. Therein lies your salvation.)
Inevitably the subject of my sibling dinners comes up. Once I explain to my friends what they’re all about, their initial reactions are always the same: “Oh my God, that’s a great idea.” “I love that.” “Brilliant.”
This is often followed by: “I can’t imagine doing that with my siblings.” “There’s no [expletive] way my siblings would agree to do that.” “Yeesh, if we did that, it would be a nightmare.”
When I hear comments like that, my heart breaks for them a little and makes me think me and my siblings are weird because we get along. Sure we fought and had differences over the years, but we laugh about it now. And there’s no lingering childhood resentment of each other that requires professional therapy. As far as our parents are concerned, we’ve always been on the same page regarding their needs. I’m ever so grateful for that and the fact that each of us more than pulls our weight with their care.
Our sibling dinners have played an integral part in all of it. We’re reinforcing our relationships but the other upside is there’s no flatulence involved – depending on what’s on the menu.
Kathy Festeryga lives in Toronto.