I remember exactly when my only-childhood ended: Saturday, the 11th of May in 1940. It was the weekend when I made my First Holy Communion—but my First Holy Communion isn’t exactly the reason why I remember it so well, although it had something to do with it.
You see, my mother wasn’t there! My Catholic mother who was raising me Catholic didn’t even come to the church—in fact she was sort of away for the weekend!
Why would she do that? Why would she abandon her only child on the biggest event to date in his young life? Why?
Why because she was in the hospital delivering a baby! And, it wasn’t even a baby brother that I could play with it—it was a baby sister!
I was too young to be allowed into the hospital, so after church my Dad and godparents took me outside the building where my Mom could look down from an upper floor window, see me in my white Communion suit, and wave to me.
I was seven and a half years old when I stopped being the unique center of attention for my parents. It was over! I no longer basked in the glory of being an only child!
My newly arrived baby sister was named “Vivien Mary”, but not after anybody in our family. The spectacular film, Gone with the Wind, had just been released four months before; the leading role of Scarlett O’Hara was played by Vivien Leigh.
I don’t know if it was the glamour of Scarlett or the acting of Vivien—or maybe just the relative uniqueness of the actress’s name that captured the attention of my parents. But, for better or worse, Vivien it was—better then Scarlett in any case!
Names can become almost prophetic: my baby sister did grow up to have beauty and glamour as well as challenges and sacrifices.
Meanwhile, what about me, the now displaced center of family attention? Well, it really wasn’t so bad at all. In fact it turned out to be nice having a sister!
The age difference between us was a major divide; we lived separate lives. When Viv started school, I was halfway through high school. When I left home to board in college, she was nine-years old.
In late spring of 1958, I was ordained a priest after five years of seminary formation, she graduated high school, and she and my parents moved to upstate New York.
In later years she would describe her growing up to me and her relationship to our parents, but it was a very different narrative from my own. For better or for worse, it sounded like an almost different family! In some sense, it was.
It’s odd to put it this way, but my sister had a kind of only-childhood, too. There wasn’t a problem of sibling rivalry when she was very little since I was so much older—and I was pretty much out-of-the picture since she was nine. But, I did remain a sort of distant, iconic figure—even if not very well known on a day-to-day basis.
It was only later in life that our brother-sister relationship grew stronger, especially after the death of our parents.
My brother-in-law’s assignment to the Southern office of the firm where he worked had led to Viv living the majority of her adult life and raising their three young children in (shades of Scarlett O’Hara!) metropolitan Atlanta.
My beautiful baby sister is gone now, “gone with the wind” of God, taken away in the force of the Spirit to the fullness of life and love in the arms of the Lord.
5 November 2020