My Sister, My Friend

I must have been told this story a thousand times. My dad and my sister Ana came to see my mom and me after my mom gave birth. My sister saw how small I was, and she was quite disappointed as she was expecting to get a playmate, and I certainly didn’t fit the bill. When she passed through the maternity, she had seen a little boy who had been abandoned in the hospital. He was crying and alone, so he had drawn her attention. She noticed that he was older and bigger so, she wondered if they couldn’t swap me for the little boy. I think one can agree this was not the best start.

I grew up with stories being told about how my sister was born. She was the golden nugget, and everybody was so happy and proud when she came. My mom and dad were both their parents’ only child so, it meant so much more to everybody when the first grandchild came into the family. My sister was the sort of child who cried all night and because my mom and dad lived with my grandparents on my mom’s side, they had to walk with her during the night and try their best not to disturb them. My mom claims that if my sister had been easier to deal with as a baby, they would have had me sooner.

Over the years, I heard the stories again and again and then I noticed that there were so many pictures of her and barely any of me. One hears the “your sister can, and you can’t,” the “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” the “your sister is that and you are that” and that is where the rivalry starts to come on. We had our share of fighting, we chucked insults at each other, we threw hands, and I have to admit that while I was smaller in age and size, I did not plan to give up without a fight. Despite all of this though, I have always looked up to my sister. I enjoyed spending time with her. I enjoyed watching horror movies with her. I enjoyed the fact that she would make up stories for me about our hamsters. One of my favourite memories actually, is when I had fallen and I hurt both knees, both elbows and my pelvis bone on my left side. All those bits were bloody and bandaged up. I couldn’t really turn from side to side, and I was in pain so, I couldn’t fall asleep because I was so uncomfortable. My sister started to make up stories and she got me giggling until I fell asleep. There were these subtle ways in which I felt cared for, I felt loved by my sister, and I loved her for being the way that she was.

My sister and I also went to the same school so, it was a matter of her taking me to school or picking me up from school if our schedules matched. She would feed me my lunch. Helped me with my homework until our parents came back from work. We would share the same room; we would sleep in the same bed. We would spend summers at our grandparents together so, we only had each other then. We were in each other’s faces all the time so when she got married and all of a sudden, she wasn’t there then I felt a little abandoned. Whenever our parents would fight with us, we would have each other and all of a sudden it was just me. I could talk to her all the time and now not only was she in another house but, she was in another country, and I could talk to her once a week as this was the pre-smartphone era. I understood that she had her own life to live, and that was never an issue but, I also felt sad for losing her as support.

Her married life changed her. I would sometimes look at her and wonder who this person was. She looked like my sister, she spoke like my sister but, she was not the same person. She was living her own life, and I lived mine. We would talk from time to time, but it was not the same. She would mostly talk to my mom and then my mom would give me an update. There would be situations where my mom would confide in me about her worries and concerns and I got so upset at my sister that at some point, I didn’t even want to talk to her. My mom told me that my sister was all that I would have when they died and that I should make more of an effort. I did but, we were not that close. There was always this feeling that regardless of what I did, my parents' attention was always geared toward my sister. At first, because she was the only one, then because she was better and then, because she needed more help.

As I went through everything and I started therapy, I started to think about my family, I started to consider the things that we were told growing up and I kept on remembering how they had said that my relatives are who they are, and you can’t pick them, and you have to make the most of them. It got stuck in my head and then this idea came to be: “I spend so much time and energy connecting with strangers and making friends. If I were to meet my sister in the street today, would I choose her as a friend?”

I started to pay more attention to her as an individual. I tried to see the parts of her that I could relate to and the parts with which I didn’t agree. I tried to find common interests. The most important part though was to make a deliberate decision to let her in, for me to be vulnerable and share enough of myself to make a connection possible. Isn’t the universe a funny thing? How does it arrange things so that the opportunity arises just when you need it? I was talking to my dad, and I was talking to him about how we shouldn’t judge children by the sins of their parents, and I mentioned his own past and family history. I say talk, I mean fight. My dad changed the subject abruptly and started talking to me about something completely different. I was so surprised by it that I thought I had missed something. I asked what the link to anything and my mom spoke up that this is Dad’s new thing and that whenever he doesn’t like the conversation, he just changes the topic. Later on, he concluded that my sister and I were too weak and ill-adjusted to deal with things to the point that I needed therapy because he and my mom had protected us from even the slightest gust of wind. This was him taking responsibility and giving us words of encouragement.

My sister and I had a call later on. I was so shocked that he would believe that. There was so much wrong with that statement that it felt like a hallucination that the entire thing even happened. I asked my sister if they really imagined themselves the perfect parents. Growing up, one of the questions that I would ask my dad again and again was if they didn’t want me, why they had me. My dad had replied that my mom couldn’t have had an abortion if she wanted to, even in communist times when they were banned, because she had medical conditions so, my actual existence was proof of them wanting me. Hallmark eat your heart out at this heart-felt, touching speech. As I was recounting this to my sister and telling her about that I felt hurt and discarded, the most surprising confession was made. My sister told me that when she was young, she thought that she might have been adopted and that is why they couldn’t love her. This woman that I thought had been stealing our parent’s attention and love from me, the person that I had been jealous of for so many years, was just as lonely and hurt as I had been. When I told my therapist about it, she asked if I didn’t feel better for letting this jealousy go and it was, but it was more than that. It was a shared experience rather than just empathy. It was confirmation that I didn’t exaggerate it in my mind, or I am not being dramatic, I am not making this up.

From here on out, we had long conversations, 7-8 hours on the phone talking about our parents’ marriage, our childhoods, the things that we were told, the things that we had been taught, the things that they never gave us. A lifetime of things that I had said to myself, a lifetime that I built on these assumptions that were either wrong or partially wrong. Things that I have told myself to ensure that I can keep on living happily. Things like: “We discuss things in our family,” “My parents have the perfect marriage that I hope to have at some point,” and “We are a close family.” Pretty little lies that I kept telling myself to keep on thinking that I have a great life. I built my hopes and dreams on them. I just lied to myself.

Amongst all of those things, an even more hurtful thing came to light. That we have been lied to. We have compared notes on different things and some of those “Don’t tell your sister” stories had been recounted differently to each of us. Not secrets but manipulation. Some slightly changed versions, some outright lies. The wedge that has been driven between us was my mother’s doing, she had created the perfect environment where each of us was on her side and we were talking to her and supporting her but, my sister and I were becoming strangers. Even the bleeding-heart request for me to try harder to be friendly with my sister came after my gran told my mom that she should do something about it. My mom had said that it was not her responsibility what her daughters do, and my gran reminded her that once they were all gone, my sister and I would only have each other. What shambles. The image of the perfect family is now in tatters.

So many hurtful things and our biggest problem was that we didn’t hear I love you from our mom. We are not an I love you family it seems. I say I love more to my dog in a week than I have said to all of them in my entire life. So, when my mother’s birthday came around, I thought I would try it out. I would say it to my mom and maybe she will say it back. We were on a video chat, and I was wishing her happy birthday, and we were closing the call I kept thinking that I should just say it, but the words would not escape my lips so, I never did. I then called my sister and told her all about it. She had said that she had had the same impulse and that she had written it in a text. My mom had addressed all the topics and never replied to the thing that mattered the most, never said I love you back. My sister sounded sad on the phone and a bit defeated and hurt. I could hear it in her voice that she was looking down. In the face of all of this, I have done whatever a sibling would do… I laughed in her face, said better you than me, laughed some more and then I told her that I loved her. If we can’t laugh about shared trauma what can we laugh about?

It has been such a long road up to here but, I now have my sister travelling this road with me. We can parent ourselves and each other. We can now teach ourselves the skills that we have not been taught. Our friendship will change over time with life but, I think that this is a friend that is worth investing my time in. The two of us can start discussing everything and being completely honest. We can start one text at a time and one phone call at a time and turn this into an I choose to be your friend family. The two of us can make this an “I love you” family.