My parents have a 50-year-old child this week.

It's not me, it's my much older sister.

That has left me trying to figure out when my folks are supposed to stop calling us "the kids".

Perhaps it's when we stop asking for their wisdom - or money!

In fact, all three offspring will be pentagenarians in the next six years.

I don't want this tale to be a lament for a lost sister because it's said that every sister has a fund of embarrassing stories she can bring out at the most effective moment. I think I'd like to avoid that.

I noticed an old photo this week that kind of summed up our childhood relationships. It's black and white, so probably about 1966. My bespectacled sister with the curly hair, and pajamas I think, is sawing away on her violin while I'm slumped nearby in that favourite wicker chair, pudgy and smurking with my hands covering my ears.

My younger brother, probably three or four, is watching on, apparently giggling at the whole production. It was early in her violin career so I suspect it wasn't The Devil Went Down to Georgia she was playing; more likely that stirring, Etude in G.

In my case, the sister that I spend 17 years of my life trying to perturb, has scarcely been nearby for the last 33 years. Some might say that's a good thing.

First there were her university years, then working in the Big Smoke and then marriage, a move to Germany and then to a move to a completely foreign land - Saskatchewan.

A niece has grown up not knowing what a truly spectacular uncle I am, save for a few brief visits in which she might have misconstrued my sense of humour for mental instability.

And my brother-in-law has been mercifully spared of the privilege of loaning me his tools, fixing my car or moving my piano.

But underlying all this separation is the understanding that a bond exists regardless of the distances that separate us.

I visit and spend time with friends and colleagues from just down the road far more than I do with my own family. There is no doubt that I phone them more than I do my sister.

The fact of the matter is I take this all for granted.

However, there's an abiding sense of belonging and an invisible bond that we all count on. Many siblings have their differences but we've been too far apart to develop those.

So the sister that I never get to see, in adulthood, remains largely tolerable and worthy of my love, admiration and respect.

And because she's a federal civil servant I have to trust that the bonds of family will be stronger than the urge to pull a few strings and have me audited for writing about her age.

For all of us kids out there, let remember that 50 is the new 40!