The Virtuous Daughter Magazine Fall 2017 edition Cherish | Page 10

WHEN SIBLINGS
BECOME FRIENDS
BY SUSANNA STOLTZFUS
I remember those days not too long
ago when the best thing about my life
was the weekend, because it meant two
nights away from home with my friends.
Back then, my family was important
to me, yes, but my siblings weren’t my
friends. They were just my little brothers
and my little sister.
There are six kids in my family, four
boys and two girls, and I’m the oldest. I
remember hitting the teenage years and
realizing that getting past the point of
being just siblings to being friends was
going to take some work. Sometimes I
would hear other people talking about
how their brothers and sisters were
their best friends, and I may have rolled
my eyes because, at least at that point,
it hardly seemed possible. But then we
started to grow up, and we began to do
things together, things that showed us
friendship along with the sibling rivalry.
Even before the growing up began, the
foundation of our relationships was
formed by living in the same house,
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fighting for the best seat in our old
conversion van, folding mountains of
laundry, climbing the old Magnolia tree
in the back yard, and studying math
around that old, nicked dining room
table. The common ground of family life
drew us together from the start.
Eventually we began to find common
interests and hobbies which drew us
together even more. Our family has long
enjoyed music and singing together. We
began to sing together for church ser-
vices, and eventually experienced several
prison crusades in north Florida and
South Carolina. Our practice sessions
were crazy, and we argued as much as
we sang. If one person got a laughing
fit, practice was over. The rest of us were
simply not strong enough to keep from
joining.
Several years ago I moved to Colorado,
1,516 miles from home, to give a year
of my time (which turned into two) to
a mission there. Six months before my
move, my brother just younger than me
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY SUSANNA STOLTZFUS, TAKEN BY
DEBORAH MILLER, OF THE STOLTZFUS FAMILY
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