During our recent trip to the Gulf Coast, I took some pictures of Mary Ashley and Emma on the beach. After they posed dutifully together, I let them go free but didn't put my camera away just yet. When they resumed their play -- singing, dancing, laughing, skipping -- I captured precious glimpses into the private world they share as sisters.
There is an ease about their relationship -- a sense of complete and total comfort born of a lifetime together. Shared experiences, shared secrets, shared dreams. Volumes spoken within a single look exchanged between the most intimate of companions.
Even their disagreements hold a degree of sweetness. As Mignon McLaughlin so aptly stated, "Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back." And when one sister is hurting, the other instinctively rushes to the aid of the other.
May they always treasure the blessings of having a sister.
"What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life -- to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories." ~ George Eliot
