My sister Betsy: Gratitude letter #2

If I could choose my family, I would of course include every member of the family I have, but I would add Betsy Zlatos as my way-cool sister (and I have no blood sisters).

Betsy and Steve Zlatos' son Bryan became our son's Elliot's best friend starting in Montessori pre-school (yo, 1992 y'all), and they've been close ever since, even during periods of sporadic communication because they were/are at different places in life. Steve R. and I met Betsy and Steve Z. through our sons' friendship, and Robinson/Zlatos has long been a bedrock relationship of our adult lives. The "two Steves" thing has led Betsy and I to refer to our husbands as if they were characters in a Russian novel or a 1960s movie: they are either Steve Robinson and Steve Zlatos, or "Mr. Robinson" and "Mr. Zlatos." Otherwise, lottsa "Steve" can be confusing, especially to us--and we need to know! So our dialogue of many years is laced with this entertaining formality. Go Steves.

We (Anne, Betsy, Steve, Steve) all play tennis, read books, like movies, vote Dem/liberal, care about the environment, and avoid thinking too hard about certain stuff to the same degree. (But they play a lotta pinochle and we don't) AND-- Betsy almost never cries--a trait I've carefully nurtured in myself and admire in other women when I encounter it.

Why am I grateful to Betsy?

Betsy, I thank you for listening to every frickin' crazy thing that ever crossed my mind, accepting me despite every low road I've ever taken without judging me, and always being there to listen. Like...as soon as I called. I've never encountered such openness and acceptance in another person (OK...except for my actual family and a Steve who made a public vow to stand by me no matter what "until death parts us"). I have many GREAT friends, but you are like my personal crisis hot line. It's not like I need it too often, but when I do--it's a 24/7/365 zone. Was it your Mom, your Dad, your sister? Where in the hell does that kind of loyalty come from?

I love the way you play tennis. The "Zen" overheads that spike off into a corner that no one can reach. The steadiness. The mostly unflappableness. The occasional strategic F-U shot, --like the ballsy, unexpected down-the-line passing shot on what could have been (and indeed turned out to be) the final shot of a match-winning tiebreaker (I wish we had played that match together=D). You just work it methodically, and I need to be reminded of workmanship. Otherwise I get absorbed in a fool's paradise of artistic shot-making. Your inside-out backhand from the deuce side. The way we tend to lose the first set and then win the next two, just to get our money's worth.

I actually like (don't love) the fact that you smoke sometimes...I think. It seems you can actually control such indulgences. I have absolutely never been able to do that. I am either all in, or all out. If you are really able to have a little fun without becoming a slave to cigs, way cool. But, not me.

I am grateful that you are such a a great Mom and Steve Z. is a fantastic Dad. You both do everything for family. Right on.

I am grateful that you checked out Six Feet Under when I suggested it, and even more impressive, that you called me and sobbed for like an hour when you got to the episode where Nate dies.

Despite the fact that you cultivate a profile of being, and I quote, "a reformed contemplative thinker," you are always feelin' it, and then you deploy your formidable rational faculties to organize your emotions into something useful. We had a moment long ago, as we were batting the ball back and forth on the tennis court at Rivi, when we discussed the value of emotional detachment. Oneness.

I loved, and am grateful for, the time when our families traveled to London together between Christmas and New Year's 2006/2007. Actually, the Zlati should probably have banished us Robinsons forever from any potential vacation plan, considering the original, extremely generous proposal to visit your place in paradise--Costa Rica. But I can tell you that both Abby and Elliot consider London the trip of their lives, and I know it was because it was the adventure we had all together. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I will be forever grateful for your Book Group picks including Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina and Isabelle Allende's Eva Luna. Two of the best books we've read in 14-15 years. I happen to think that two of my picks--John Kennedy O'Toole's Confederacy of Dunces and Victor Hugo's Les Miserables--were just as good, but you are the master.

I am grateful that you love animals and share that obsession with me. Rocky, Luna, Tony (our adorable singing frog whom I must point out I did NOT name), Tess, orange cats, and all the rest. You are among those friends whom I lean on to know that critters know us, and put up with us, and absorb our excess love. It is a sad fact that human love often overflows its boundaries and then seeks animals or objects (rather than our fellow man), but at least it's a great benefit to some of the critters. Under any circumstances, for every reason imaginable, way more people should generate excess love.

I am grateful that you are Betsy. You a great Mom, thinker, instrument of compassion for all living creatures, and friend. I hope we can always be together somehow, no matter where life leads. (Can you say "Slovakia?," cause that's where I think you are going!)