DHF and the little sisters

I have two sisters. One is three years younger than me and the other is the same three younger than her, and because my parents weren’t paying attention and gave my middle sister a name with the same initials as mine, they ended up continuing the initials with my youngest sister. This worked to their advantage in the mid-eighties when monogrammed sweaters were the thing to have, and all my clothes were passed down. Of course, by the time my youngest sister grew into my old hand-me-downs, she was, shall we say, less than thrilled to be sporting a bright yellow, puffy shouldered v-neck with two of her initials emblazoned above one breast (the first initial had fallen off in the wash some time earlier).

Despite the fact that we were neither triplets nor members of the Osmond family, my mother found it somehow necessary to dress us alike for family portraits and trips to the grocery store. She was quite the seamstress, my mother, and she was continually whipping up matching jumpers or terry-cloth jogging suits. And though she did allow us the slightest bit of dignity by sometimes altering the colors of our matching outfits, I still remember the resentment over the fact that my sisters had to be dressed like me and the uneasiness over whether or not we were going to be expected to break out a song and choreographed dance routine whenever we were taken out in public.

We never were, but the fear was there.