THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508160035
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLISE LYLES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
BEVERLY CAROLINE LYLES. My sister-girlfriend, my sister-girl, my sister.
I love her.
Probably more than anyone: mother, father, brother, boyfriend. Our bond is born of blood and friendship, forged from struggles and joys of our common history and sex. It is mysterious and powerful.
So I understand instinctively why the book ``Sisters,'' a collection of photographs by Sharon J. Wohlmuth and essays by Carol Saline, has remained on the national non-fiction best-sellers list for 33 weeks (as of Aug. 13). Right up there with``Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys.''
The theme seems, at first, so simple that it is almost trite. But ``Sisters'' has resonated with women everywhere, touching deep places in the heart.
Smiling, frowning, frolicking in the pages of ``Sisters'' are unknowns such as a pair who were sister and brother until a sex change made them sisters, and a Vietnamese refugee who was reunited with her sisters. The famous are also included, such as Coretta Scott King and her sister Edythe, and the Mandrells: Irlene, Louise and Barbara.
``Through my photographs I want to reflect the unique mystery that is sisterhood,'' says Wohlmuth in the introduction. ``Sometimes that required patiently waiting for a moment when the connection would reveal itself.''
Relationships between sisters can be fraught with jealousy, rivalry and bitterness. Little girls can grow up to be sisters who haven't spoken to one another in years.
But at its best, the bond holds stronger than that of brother/sister, runs deeper than that between brothers and is far more open than that of mother/daughter.
``It's not like the parent/child relationship because you don't look for approval from her like you want from your parents,'' said Dr. Alice Twining, a Virginia Beach therapist who specializes in women's issues. ``You can tell your sister everything.
``When my marriage was falling apart, I confided everything in my sister because I didn't think my mother would understand.''
Beverly Caroline Lyles, five years my junior, is herself a student of psychology. But even she struggles to articulate just what it is about ``the unique mystery of sisterhood.''
``The common chord of the mother, your mother's life is reflected in your own person and your sister's,'' said Beverly.
``When I see you, I see Mama and another part of myself. We are the same, but somehow miraculously different.
``I've grown up with you from birth. I am attached to your being. I also know that no matter how foul I get, there is forgiveness.''
Several sets of sisters in Hampton Roads shared their feelings about that special sibling.
Glimpse these sisters sitting across from each other and it's hard to believe their claim: ``We've never quarreled. Ever.''
Margaret Stroud, in shorts and mod strappy sandals with yellow and pink plastic flowers, declares: ``I'm the liberal one. She's conservative. I think I'm a little more apt to laugh a situation off.''
Serious-minded and more apt to analyze than laugh, Elizabeth Miller nods from the sofa in Stroud's sunny den overlooking a branch of the Lynnhaven River. She wears white slacks and smart, low-heeled pumps.
Stroud is more outgoing, a lover of French, a Sunday School teacher, a book reviewer. Miller prefers opera and sewing.
``I hate to sew,'' says Stroud, flicking her wrist. ``But we've always gotten along.''
``I think it's because we don't let our differences bother us,'' says Miller. ``I can roll with it and I think she does, too.''
Teens in Norfolk during the Great Depression, they learned to share: books read under covers, even a wedding dress..
Today, ``the dress,'' a delicate drape of yellowing satin, is tucked away in Stroud's attic.
It is more than a metaphor for their closeness. In it they each walked down the aisle into very different lives.
Stroud settled into a long, happy married life of nearly 56 years.
But after 25 years of marriage, Miller was widowed suddenly.
``She has had a lot of sorrow in her life,'' says Stroud, her voice soothing as balm. ``That's one reason I've such respect for her. I've seen her come through real tragedies. I'm not too sure I would do as well as she does.''
Miller nods again, as if fate was right to choose her rather than her sister.
They can spend a full day with each other, then go home and talk on the phone.
``What on earth could they be talking about?'' Otto Stroud wonders of his wife and her sister.
The fight broke out in Mama's bedroom.
Angela Walston and the family insurance man seated in the kitchen heard the sound of grown women pushing and shoving each other.
``I was so embarrassed,'' said Denise. ``The insurance man had known us since we were little girls growing up in Moyock.''
They had been little girls who had always gotten along. Even when Mama insisted that Denise take little Angela and Sibyl along with her on dates. Even every Sunday, when those two insisted that Denise tell them the same make-believe story. Even when they squealed to Mama that Denise wouldn't play hide-and-go-seek with them.
At times, Angela and Sibyl have been close and Denise more distant. But they always craved contact with their beloved older sister.
Now Denise and Sibyl were near blows.
``I told the insurance man, `Excuse me one minute,' '' said soft-spoken Angela, 34. Then she ever-so-graciously left the kitchen to find out what in the world was going on.
Denise and her big-sister tendencies were the culprit.
Their father, Floyd W. Walston, had died and Denise had taken on the role of family ``tower of strength'' and grief manager. She was insisting that Sibyl, the most aloof of the three, cry and express her sorrow.
``I had everything bottled up inside and Denise would try to force me to talk,'' said Sibyl, 32.
Denise doesn't deny it. ``Sibyl was in the room and I wanted her to talk to me about how she was feeling.''
When Sibyl started out the door, Denise put her foot down. Hard.
``We never really hit each other,'' said Denise. ``It's almost like we were grabbing to hold on to each other.''
Coping with their father's 1993 death upset the harmony among these three who had lived all their lives with Mama and Daddy, except college years.
Though close, this trio makes the Odd Couple seem compatible.
Angela is a stylishly coiffed, almond-eyed speech pathologist for Virginia Beach schools. She is so Felix Unger-meticulous that she lays clothes out for the next day upon arriving home from work, carries an emergency pair of pantyhose in her purse at all times, and leaves for work two full hours before she is due.
Reserved Sibyl, a retired postal worker and aspiring singer whose appearance is just as polished, is too particular: She disdains wire hangers and likes all her clothes facing the same direction in the closet.
Denise, laughing with gusto, ``takes pride in being late'' and chooses an outfit 10 minutes before leaving for her job as a math coordinator with Norfolk schools.
Denise and Sibyl remain at home with Mama in Chesapeake. Angela has moved out.
``I have a special pact with God,'' Angela said in almost a whisper, ``that we'll die all together because we love each other so much.''
Nancy Cole and Sue Midgett just can't get serious.
Two pairs of hazel eyes dart back and forth. Then these two cut loose with loud, crackly, girlish guffawing.
They bounce about a striped sofa in Cole's bright beach home decorated with giant shells and colorful glass fish.
What's so funny?
Nothing in particular. The laughter arises from a certain secret and silent knowing, just like little girls in trouble for doing something dumb but fun.
Persnickety, high-strung Cole, a 35-year-old mother of two daughters, and roll-with-the-punches Midgett, 39 and mother of two teen-age boys, have happily clashed through a lifetime. In love and in trouble.
Like the time Cole poured makeup all over her dolls. Midgett thought her a brat.
Like when they went camping as girls in South Carolina. Midgett crowded the car by bringing a playmate along. Cole ended up sitting on the floor.
Like the time teen-age Midgett wanted to paint the walls of her bedroom black with little holes for stars. Now they are in real trouble. Last October, Midgett discovered a walnut-sized tumor in her breast.
Cancer had taken their mother when Cole was 2 and Midgett was 6.
``I've no recollection of her at all,'' says Cole. ``The only way is through Sue.''
``My older sister took care of me,'' Midgett says of Cheryl Maupin, who lives in Raleigh. ``And I helped with Nancy, getting her ready for church.''
Now chemotherapy has made Midgett's memory murky. And it's taken her slender, athletic figure. A fashionable straw hat covers her close-cropped hair.
But if anybody had to get sick. . .
``Of the three of us, it's probably best that this happened to me,'' she says. ``I feel I'm glad it was me because they were so upset.''
``She's pretty much kept on going,'' says Cole, an insurance agent. ``I think I would've come to a screeching halt. I can't even stand to go in a hospital. She kept going to work. And she goes back to talk to other patients.''
Cole bestows an admiring glance upon her sister. Silence.
Both stare out into the room as if they have spotted the same glittery particle of dust and are watching it float gently to the glass cocktail table. ``Merrily, merrily, merrily . . . life is but a dream.''
Midgett cracks a smile. Now Cole can't stifle hers. Then comes the girlish guffawing, even in the face of death.
The glass table reflects their lip-glossed smiles. Silence.
From the dining room, you can hear Cole's daughters, Emily, 6, and Callie, 9, laughing and playing. ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN/Staff photos
Angela Walston, left, and her sisters Sibyl and Denise, right:
Though close, this trio makes the Odd Couple seem compatible.
Nancy Cole, bottom, supported her sister, Sue Midgett, through a
bout with cancer. Their sense of humor helps get them through.
Elizabeth Miller, left, and her sister, Margaret Stroud, learned to
share during the Depression: books read under covers, even a wedding
dress.
by CNB