Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Losing My Sister: A Memoir
    Losing My Sister: A Memoir
    Losing My Sister: A Memoir
    Ebook281 pages3 hours

    Losing My Sister: A Memoir

    By Judy Goldman

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    “Family stories grow to be bigger than the experiences themselves,” writes Judy Goldman in her memoir, Losing My Sister. “They become home to us, tell us who we are, who we want to be. Over the years, they take on more and more embellishments and adornments until they eclipse the actual memory. They become our past—just as a snapshot will, at first, enhance a memory, then replace it.” As she remembers it now, Goldman’s was an idyllic childhood, charmed even, filled with parental love and sisterly confidences. Growing up in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Judy and her older sister, Brenda, did everything together. Though it was clear from an early age that their personalities were very different (Judy was the “sweet” one, Brenda, the "strong" one), they continued to be fairly inseparable into adulthood. But the love between sisters is complex. Though Judy and Brenda remained close, Goldman recalls struggling to break free of her prescribed role as the agreeable little sister and to assert herself even as she built her own life and started a family. The sisters’ relationship became further strained by the illnesses and deaths of their parents, and later, by the discovery that each had tumors in their breasts—Judy’s benign, Brenda’s malignant. The two sisters came back together shortly before the possibility of permanent loss became very real. In her uniquely lyrical and poignant style, Goldman deftly navigates past events and present emotions, drawing readers in as she explores the joys and sorrows of family, friendship, and sisterhood.

    Judy Goldman is the author of two novels, Early Leaving and The Slow Way Back, and two books of poetry. Her work has been published in Real Simple magazine, and in many literary journals—including Kenyon Review, Southern Review, Ohio Review, Gettysburg Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner—as well as in numerous anthologies. Her commentaries have aired on public radio and she teaches at writers’ conferences throughout the country. She received the Fortner Writer and Community Award for "outstanding generosity to other writers and the larger community." She’s also the recipient of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, the Mary Ruffin Poole Award for First Fiction, the Gerald Cable Poetry Prize, the Roanoke-Chowan Prize for Poetry, the Oscar Arnold Young Prize for Poetry, and the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Prize for Poetry. The Slow Way Back was shortlisted for the Southeastern Independent Bookseller Alliance’s Novel of the Year. Judy lives with her husband in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlair
    Release dateOct 1, 2012
    ISBN9780895875846
    Losing My Sister: A Memoir
    Author

    Judy Goldman

    Judy Goldman was born in Mexico City, where she was brought up speaking Spanish and English. She has published over 40 books in Mexico, the United States, Colombia, Brazil, and Germany.

    Related to Losing My Sister

    Related ebooks

    Women's Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      On Rejection, Abortion, and What’s Left Behind

      Sep 14, 2022

      "For me, shame is located in my secret life as a writer. For my patients, shame is located in their choices and in their bodies." The post On Rejection, Abortion, and What’s Left Behind appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Tell Children the Truth

      Sep 14, 2021

      Tell Children the Truth
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shrapnel

      Apr 21, 2022

      On December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and murdered twenty-six people. Twenty of them were first graders. I have a hard time remembering that number. I have to look it up every time I mention it.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Shells: Picking Apart Pain and Womanhood

      Jun 7, 2018

      The skin on the bottoms of my feet is so hard that I have felt a dull ache somewhere in my heel after running miles barefoot on the beach; not until I pull my foot up on my knee do I realize that a small, sharp shell has dug in and stuck inside the c

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Same Story

      Mar 29, 2021

      FROM ISSUE #53: MISTAKES SUZANNE ROBERTS is the author of Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (Bronze Medal Winner from the North American Travel Journalists Association for Best Travel Book) and the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Da

      13 min read

    • Article

      Heroes Among Us

      Apr 10, 2020

      Heroes Among Us
      9 min read

    • Article

      Heroes Among Us

      Apr 10, 2020

      Heroes Among Us
      10 min read

    • Article

      On Writing (and Rewriting) Illness

      Apr 27, 2023

      We’d read this story before. How could I make it fresh, original, and literary? The post On Writing (and Rewriting) Illness appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Mothers As Makers Of Death

      Aug 14, 2018

      Mothers As Makers Of Death
      8 min read

    • Article

      How Deep This Grief

      Aug 16, 2017

      IAN STANSEL is the author of the novel The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017) and the short story collection Everybody’s Irish (FiveChapters, 2013), a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. He teac

      9 min read

    • Article

      A Monstrous Silence

      Dec 15, 2021

      BETH GILSTRAP is the author of Deadheading & Other Stories (2021), winner of the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize. She is also the author of I Am Barbarella (Twelve Winters Press, 2015) and No Man’s Wild Laura (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2016). Born and r

      11 min read

    • Article

      Reflections

      Feb 1, 2019

      Do you know what’s worse than a hypochondriac? A vindicated hypochondriac. You know it’s going to be bad when your GP gets choked up. No one likes telling a mother she’s got cancer. Doctor Tearful needn’t have worried. I’d been working towards this m

      9 min read

    • Article

      I Used to Give Men Mercy

      Feb 12, 2018

      I Used to Give Men Mercy
      12 min read

    • Article

      GOING TO THE edge

      Sep 3, 2020

      GOING TO THE edge
      7 min read

    • Article

      Entering Through the Side Door

      Aug 18, 2021

      THIRTEEN years ago I attended my very first writers colony and began living a lie. The lie wasn’t to do with the worry writers often feel—that rude, wicked thing we call impostor’s syndrome, a fear that we aren’t qualified to put our thoughts onto th

      10 min read

    • Article

      Some Kind of Reality

      Jun 1, 2020

      Some Kind of Reality
      16 min read

    • Article

      Ariel Levy: “Feminism Never Said You Can Have It All”

      Mar 14, 2017

      Ariel Levy is a journalist, author, and staff writer at The New Yorker who has written long stories about South African Olympian Castor Semenya, gay-rights activist Edith Windsor, and what The Joy of Sex looks like for today’s reader. But if you know

      7 min read

    • Article

      Old Lesbian Love

      Mar 5, 2024

      The sexual objectification of the body, of our bodies, is less an insult these days and more of a goal.  The post Old Lesbian Love appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Finding My Words

      Oct 25, 2022

      Finding My Words
      11 min read

    • Article

      How Deep This Grief

      Aug 16, 2017

      How Deep This Grief
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Abortions I Have Known

      Mar 17, 2019

      The Abortions I Have Known
      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Losing My Sister

    4/5

    5 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The sibling relationship is a very special one. It can be contentious or loving and is frequently both. Your siblings know you in ways that no one else in your life does. They share your history and know many of your secrets even if you've never told them. Sisters definitely share a powerful bond. A sister, in many ways, is a reflection of who we are, our nearest family, our closest ally and our bitterest enemy. Only someone so important in our lives could drive us to such extremes of feeling. Only a sister. But when you lose your sister, you lose a large part of who you are. You are never you in relation to your sister ever again and you have to carry your memories and your shared past alone no matter that past was whether it was idyllic, horrific, or just your garden variety sister relationship. In Losing My Sister, Judy Goldman explores every facet of her relationship with her older sister, Barbara, from childhood to adulthood including her feelings at watching Barbara fight breast cancer for years and her stunned feelings of loss when Barbara loses the battle.A lovely and loving relationship memoir, Goldman weaves her happy childhood memories growing up with Barbara in with the struggles they faced in their adult relationship. As children, the sisters were very close and each happily played the role the family expected of her. Judy was always the sweet, subservient sister who appreciated her older sister's protectiveness. Barbara was the more assertive sister who sheltered her younger sister. And as children, there was never any reason to push the boundaries of these roles. But as adults, Judy no longer wanted to give Barbara charge of her life, choosing her own way as a wife and mother. This abrupt rewriting of their understood relationship with its implied judgment and competition led to tension, hurt feelings, arguments, and estrangements over the years. But Goldman is scrupulously honest when looking at the reasons she and her sister fall out, examining her own culpability and the possible ways in which she contributed to the ongoing rifts.If she chronicles the ways that a sister relationship can break down, she also chronicles the depth of love that always rescues it. No matter what memories Goldman shares with the reader, it is clear that her love for Barbara shines through. And her shock and grief at the news that Barbara's cancer is terminal is profound. In this memoir looking back at her relationship with her beloved older sister, Goldman writes with a reflective honesty and a touching poignancy. Because she is a poet, Goldman includes some poetry that speaks to the complex and multi-faceted relationship she had with her sister. The non-chronological narration might give some readers pause, especially when the sisters are not speaking to each other and there's a time jump backwards or forwards. And while the devastation of losing a sister is clearly overwhelming, there's a bit of a tendency for Goldman to take on more of the blame for their feuds than is probably merited but that's a common enough tendency after the death of a loved one, to canonize them to some degree. Over all though, this is a well-written and introspective look at the connection of family, the universality of relationship, and the ways in which we break away (or don't) from the long-ingrained expectation of who we are, especially in relation to our siblings.
    • 5/5
      Judy Goldman’s Losing My Sister is big, wise, heart-squeezing. It puts to words what I’d thought inarticulable—an act not unlike giving flesh to a shadow. This book will help a lot of people—people who are hurting for excellent prose, and also people who are just hurting.

    Book preview

    Losing My Sister - Judy Goldman

    jOabook_preview_excerpt.html}\KFv 8+,8iikZMkğMDv@d"XD\!tdN"wцՙ "ן>oy8_<T?>x1?}\~׍//j\WutsrSqpkur}UC*>MHRMpqK*𘾏CyrX- /o0UqO?v7cl=;T/q|FF?hK)Xp4\Z?Tyz7qniĿ%s/궲έùkN6.<6!s >*.]<2蝛O3?_TcKge=h(VMRjfOK͘hP0/-!Ïn|GmIta[\4KP J3 .xLWC Mi.&?4Nk^(=Ļ ~?ٜ'\fv^q_W#4z=g<X#nb8w!؃(]X!BM^w ̰>wS?!{? =!/RN1[߀|cBpPSgc MhB)Ξu ~ BrS+ 8h湃T3O<$i9Mntըhy_Jt3 z;OUy9]: ]d_iD.<+$l fx qt'yK}W`^\!?7 251b)%ߺ?Eoq֖ M|v}2cDJ$.)֝ a #4}bߛgS8VbJ7="4z(nA pw1cʿ{hQquZ$ެz؃6['|>^S\r}oa G<[٧:1B|F`zYۼQqxO3K3} :Fpp]qkPĽ,wb <w$I WG_;l$d ixf8= ?yIlqUO  m9D%4rv(5m#fM3ځ=5?.h;9+?\wk3 nA>vZB{ qC 77oV0<2~0ҝ6wq}]rGՈ6q;'\IJw\Yl;*{FF< rv9D7̏~wlPzT=U~'Ni+s>hDVthlj){8dMofϼ( 4/o:UR/z 4$@`qSK՜סIm.J~8S.h]R2VS{3.NgB _* Deyi@mSDlDCڬS!kaۋ#H?2#d78v^[azi^ Jx mRcW1U#nRhEh_[~r9}wbؚ!)3ے p"O'a?TÎ pWTV #>uלGB.P0FjG SG0?Yh=@" %Z<6xwn{c0Qlrf0dO0H jOF/n,[ezW;JG`DF͕fs N \`3Ug7*!JmDtQx-ɢH!]x)ɧyɰJ=A_|2Ff+NXg: A=( ܨ~ ;*J(׌uoZ܋kD) qS<ߖB3F tEu'/Xl Ϲ `IBMB)YA;v% f$'˵Ax!CFT7~a VGЄT8MGNT 0qrIV͆J`A7 9u B8 X %E Bʑb#m AG[H`JlS4qrfpnڸ}%65?>5`j؞?URxg؟ -1:%a7"_p_߯Řr+#eVdPy8f7Uu`u-pQ M8yV ȜQ}!@+ɡ]ʕv9xpDueEGNHg:r [:$3j8)}zLddidSᤄ GD7mi\wQ0Z2 VgiHPȁ Ez\IY>H)*TC js~jR[66p׮g-07lIi_/dE.LrU4k|k~@Kb8 l K|Cn#_ZjT(6[_3gqT,m_Fj&#`e9;Äˑ Jf}$O2&.ѭ&Klyj[N3" s,YSm b Ysi`X-Kl-6S. @ҁFgPCâ6Ю(N XB!GU[zC[5n>SHU+Oa=e2>UEpe1D^bMݩObS{?.McF]ehKr7go-ymmMﰭo ۠u`p-!B_(V :jCe\vqk}c刑w}`*W WseFRjtM_–'5ܰ"foh<6MNvyD <(΀0zP 5 U}2;ɶpj,)Wx13xJ_rnڌ*SFh8UGW>eb]e*U,d m$V_ P[&:)QleM1nDBn|,(4~q, ,!ĔiPQVm~&#ŨKsS+̴+F:l9Zi}.˚J!_Xco#[ˍe[h?R܈55bo ~!yfX8=r㯒\1T0k8áa2mE񙩞 :/udB2J ̇,2[^p:IC$ =h,fb*CVorr&Gҹz,>փzцܗ :aHL00 u8j (-=rWc,NbIϕ>DvcEτ_r *)p8ع)X{V^f̎YrD )ʨ\u.;0&dhpm";.{ϥ d{f*Kh5j#Hȅe5vns)K. +f.{,dgDZ\AE;K _2J!@ #1Xֶ 9 # j33쒫x {Ƒb;k&W_`W&8֬4֡Ѿ}/,֧.#]۵@H[7\|$/n9 ڈ)-(XJZ2liV_?ZARΨ22(;ʊʌ)ThS6Zhݗ#@>jv"p=p$V<r跕װdE1~̼I:N*'M\h _tvꭻv12JQ1_5%w5 [ + zBͤ֔C.o9D'\É7!)]kt[] Ϧ4ctE2qol'ywMGlLD.|)> ]jGɸ;8FU62J8[vf r>TuQàrLZRw eE>Ea DCTR, XiqVN625ڝ?/,&s* wl:ӃX6h\r`]&{8C?ݮ%rI#=qV+2tL#9P H\]yb@b8#x-=RG _4/-.=trT?Ag,Hu5 [Uq(@8pٮUQO$+gC/S}e K@c DF*y'27g( es~6 "Ie ˹.QDf@į7V~ıwS۵|̳Wl,9 ?Hx_,Tw#eGفے[pm.?l!L:$N.{#%1{og|>kEd' fvPS̡PfTՁ Vj+ +GxK>S2~%/"F,űhb)K0b&> ; űm笞ĭuI?*_Cc0p07:6CE9k[]ޑ+;s17ޛ@P5;zU BeݷE4~ɔ:`Df[hU($N~%KÛi,fl$WDmDسיҭHLU0Uk4.e!-iUOL9Y&M 2xǂ:7Jf)s.{jf>hyt:`n&64XPt7 \+ėeiq"rlfהfR!dxR/Xt o񍴟f׷gJ 2)9筀_:ģܵbqIvHe}m|ْrNa^  ) âqif}RureԮPEHP0<Θr`4~1KR:$ϔ^A ^{tNJw?l/Ѫ3c[r~Gf /qOetǮ0\Id` &W]b)b.j11hZ&"zٜ@yP2 .,Fg'fa_&ҚMyfP>궗;EyoJ8t%l,Nk]\-.`!!Eʢ)$2ԥ-1M=0a:CAŽY7Ϝ$omRYTLtny_IKXp lE-<u!dSVjg%R` _z"S|ZeH[f]yL_Ǡ4hi`۰/4?[}B^Hn@Ty6N]^h[^T]ssb)dЯYUf!޲S$ETB))IkB "W_6̀* wvo^h3a#6f]MQ1m [fS/ Xc64 CE96W6zM@MQ,;>XT`ht,/YQ_֛owKzYoz6_^ٌǑ7.~9 E+wC׺g 1 |]^kls`6W:nϙ#7F:!B9FhD/p(eC/)-7>8.P|Ӛ:Ѣ:> wæ~Ćy l^E ؝Պ8T/qNĨ/'g~`hUU:wkuj=qeH{+M$IOz|#Oߝ8lچ/^E f\)q/Sb|ފR$Oй?؉Ř~Gշ:12a}̙mf EM%Ιg$WWJ.? r䄷efta(dH MXsmJ|TVɔnYU^:u&|'|U~֜^˴?#gG%9v;-etYeuh\m/ LV X^#Ou0z ?+DV&0VZ߳yX{x75 ʏ|Eu_}W^(oiȴO"0͉,6&JeEvGY4k\ ZigmszWtWpڹƴ pb?.@؛ř>1cN^pCY& 64(@$/|Y|2QUGÐ \gZ+3(YH?O0^{WtyR/@Y,۸މ65?%mPt7h6btي Tɳ@+-sY̍ԷO&x6X9smΪ(MhRT1CV2- Me
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1