2007 Heather Campbell Personal Essay Contest Honorable Mention
Shoulder to Shoulder
I am immediately suspicious about the origins of the mountain of produce my sister has left for me on the countertop. It is too much food, and from the packaging I know it cost too much money. A quick look at the labels tells me the harvest is from the fancy organic grocery store, where people with deep pockets can afford the markup. My sister can’t afford the markup. She is a full-time student who picks up odd jobs and trades her services as a resident assistant (RA) for room and board at a youth hostel.
In addition to the eight years and five siblings between my sister and me, there is also an ideological divide as seemingly impassable as the Continental Divide. We are the bookends of our mom and dad’s experiment in parenthood. As the oldest child I complain about tight oversight and too many responsibilities. As the youngest, she complains about being left out of everything and of not being allowed to grow up. But those are the differences that keep us connected—the ones that prove we’re sisters.
The other variances are more divisive. At twenty-four she is a committed vegetarian and is testing the waters of feminism, pacifism, and environmentalism. She is earthy and crafty, having taken up knitting and ceramics. She and her friends take miles-long midnight rides on bicycles pieced together from the junkyard. I am an omnivore (although to save money, we only eat meat about once a week), and the only movement I’ve committed myself to is motherhood. These are distinctions that might be ignored or glossed over if we lived farther apart, but we live in the same city, which is more than 2000 miles from our parents and other siblings. This paradox of geographical proximity and distance leaves us yearning to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with one another—as women and as sisters.
The yearning remains unfulfilled. In reality, the rub of day-to-day life leaves our edges raw and our actions open to misinterpretation. Today, faced with an unexpected bushel of good-for-you-food, I add up what I know about my sister and it soon becomes clear that the pile of vegetables covering my counter is most likely the result of a late-night raid on the dumpster next to the fancy organic grocery store. But I can’t be sure, and I can’t ask her because a conversation that begins, “Did you get that food from the trash” is not going to end up anywhere but in the garbage.
Over the years, a lot of our conversations have spoiled. Her path is not my path. And in the past I’ve judged her too harshly for her choices—especially those that have led her away from church, and away from God. In order to maintain a relationship, our entire family has stopped talking about God and about the gospel with her. We talk about the family of red hawks who live in my parents’ backyard or we laugh ourselves silly about things that happened when we were children. Over the years, the elephant has become quite a bit smaller, but he’s still in the room and every once in a while he lifts up his trunk and lets out a loud cry—just so we don’t forget.
At church, I dismiss inquiries about my sister with a simple, “She’s inactive.” The reality is too complicated and complex to distill for those who see her only as a “no contact” on the visiting teaching list. Often I find kindred souls experiencing the blend of sorrow and hope that comes with a loved one quitting the faith. I’ve found comfort and understanding in conversations with my Relief Society president who has shared with me the feelings she has about her own daughter’s decision to disassociate with the Church. Our communal pain connects us and allows us to stand shoulder to shoulder in sisterhood. We’ve learned as many others have that there are few answers for those with loved ones who have left the Church.
There are not many general conference talks on the topic of loved ones leaving the Church. There are statements that encourage us to love the sinner and hate the sin, or vague promises that children raised in a righteous home will eventually return to the fold. And many people have taken my hand in church and told me that my sister “will come back when she’s ready.”
What do we as Latter-day Saints find so troubling about one who used to believe? The image of a seed, planted and growing, is imprinted deeply in my mind. I know my sister planted her seed and that it grew—I’ve felt the Spirit burn in my heart when she bore her testimony. What I can’t account for is what happens to a seed when you dig the plant up and throw it out.
I take comfort in the small changes. We’ve started to talk in little ways about Church, and she happily came to listen to my daughter participate in her first Primary program. My sister has slowly softened her stance and is now willing to accept prayers on her behalf when she’s sick. And then there is her gradual shift from atheism to agnosticism. But still I wonder, why is my faith not strong enough accept her belief that it remains unknowable to know if God exists? I struggle to reject the feeling that this belief is anything but an assault on my testimony—on my belief that God lives and He sent His Son that we might have an eternal life with our families.
Now that I am a mother, I feel the promise of eternal families more deeply. I’ve always worried about my siblings—it was my lot as the oldest child to be a second mother. And so for years, unasked, I took up my parents’ burdens. It was not my place, but it did not keep me from feeling the sting of failure that surrounded her decision to leave the Church. Too many automatically attribute her leaving to a parenting error. And at first I looked to my parents and wondered; I felt shame for them. But now, with two children of my own, I want to tell those who have judged them to go ahead and throw the first stone. They do not know what parents know—you give your best, and beyond that there is not right or wrong, only consequences.
For a while, I prayed, as I know many other loved ones of lost sheep have, for her to be struck as Alma the Younger or Saul. I prayed for angelic interference in my sister’s dalliances. I wanted an evangelical conversion, and hoped a trade could be made: three days and three nights of intense, excruciating pain for the right to emerge with sins forgiven and vices left behind—with a faith so strong there would no longer be any struggle.
But the struggle remains—not only for my sister, but for me. Yet I’ve begun to see in Christ’s teachings a way to truly stand shoulder to shoulder with my sister. As my heart softens, my eyes begin to open and I start to see my sister for who she is and not for the labels I’ve given her.
She is an amazing aunt. I am able to work part-time at a job that I love because one day a week she watches my children. On the drive to her place, they nearly leap out of their car seats in anticipation. “Oh, it’s an Aunt M—— day,” says my daughter. “I’ve been waiting all week for that.” My sister takes them, and they return having learned amazing things. She taught my daughter how to hold her shirt cuffs when she puts on a jacket so the sleeves don’t slide up her arms. She taught my son how to unbuckle his car seat and open the car door on his own.
I can hear my children playing as I stand in my kitchen trying to decide what to do with two large eggplants, a bag of organic potatoes, a basket of squash, onions, and mushrooms. I worry that if I don’t use it all I will wake up to fuzzy eggplants, soft squash, and green potatoes. But I can’t focus on recipes. Instead, I think about a conversation I had earlier that week.
“I’ve never met your mother,” says an acquaintance of mine (and the woman who employs my sister). “She must be extraordinary. Your sister speaks of her frequently and I’ve been impressed that she gives such weight to your mother’s counsel. She tells me time and again that your mother is a strong and capable woman. I think it must be so because your sister is so wonderful.”
“Our mother is extraordinary,” I say. I want to say more, but I can’t. I’m addled and grasping to understand how this fleeting exchange has created a seismic shift in the way I see my sister.
I left the conversation a bit unsure. In that single moment I caught a glimpse of my sister’s true worth. I saw her apart from myself, apart from our family. As I gather the ingredients for eggplant stew, I know that it is my responsibility to feast on what we had been given and to see it for what it is.
Courtney lives with her family (husband, two children, and a dog) in Memphis, Tennessee. She is not natively Southern, but has fully embraced “y’all” and the deep literary traditions of the Mississippi Delta. She recently started the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Memphis.
