What the world would have us believe about childhood is
usually at complete odds with the real experience of our early years within the
family unit. Unfortunately, we have no perspective on this until we’re older
and most likely struggling to resolve problematic personal issues by looking
back on those days.
Like all infants, my universe was the people in my immediate
family. They were everyone and everything. Their faces, smiling or angry; their
words, gentle or shrill – what does a child have except instinct to guide him
or her to sources of comfort and security in those preverbal years? So it must
have been instinct that drew me like a magnet to my big sister. I was
completely taken with her, probably way before the time my mind was even
capable of storing memories.
With a delightfully round face and enormous
brown eyes, my big sister was gentle and harmless. But best of all, she had
endless time for me! Time to talk to me, play secret hiding games with me,
giggle about mean grown-ups and strange kids with me, watch TV with me, and
fight with me. She was inseparable from
my world as I knew it, and from me.
Honestly, one of the things I liked most about my sister was
her size. Despite being two years older, she was still shorter and
smaller-boned than me. We would spread our hands and fingers apart, then bring
them together - hers against mine. Always my fingers were longer, and my hand
entirely eclipsed hers. I felt bigger and stronger than she, able to dominate if
it came down to fisticuffs. And with my wild and tempestuous nature, it did
indeed come down to that often enough. Being physically superior to my sister gave
me a sense of having some power. (It seems to me that survival within a family
is sometimes no different than in the jungle, where the brawnier animals secure
their position over those more frail.)
Big sister – I needed her gentleness even while sometimes
taking advantage of it, a dependency that helped and hurt. But allow me to
endure, she did… We gave each other comfort on those nights when we lay only a
few feet apart on our twin beds, listening with fear and anguish to our
parents’ yelling voices. Mercifully and reliably, she was by my side when we found
out that our beloved kitten had been killed by a fan-belt blade while trying to
keep warm on the engine of a neighbor’s car. And hers the first face offering
consolation and the possibility of redemption when my butt was sore from a
spanking and my spirit bruised from shame.
Mostly, though, we played and teased and made endless entertainment
from nothing at all. Boring car rides were perfect for tickling and poking and uncontrollable
laughter. In our bedroom, a cast of stuffed animals had names and lives of
their own as they talked to each other in the voices we gave them. At the
beach, adrift a few feet offshore in our “floatie,” I was “Cap-i-tan” and she
was “Mate-y” as we adventured on the high seas. And how can I forget our “foot
wars” as we watched television on our parents’ big bed – lying flat with the bottoms
of our feet joined in the air, each of us pushing against the other with our
backs arching up off the mattress?
In the later years, we would lay side-by-side on her double
bed listening to “Mystery Theater” on the radio; in the darkness we talked and giggled
about boys we liked, grievances with petty girlfriends, and the illusiveness of
belonging to the “in” crowd at school. It was a routine I grew familiar with,
until it was over forever.
Inevitable it was that my sister - my closest confidante,
partner in fun and crime – would grow past me and dive fully into fascination with
her peer group. To compete was impossible, and slowly, painfully, I became
aware that I was nothing more than an inconvenience to her. She drifted away
and was absent from my life in what seemed like seconds. Probably this was
normal and natural, of course; she was older than me. But its suddenness was
acute, magnified by a tragic absence of anyone else in my life to fill the gap.
Outside the family I was shy, introverted, and unable to make friends easily.
How I wished for just a small portion of my big sister’s poise and social
skills! Feeling abandoned, alone, and inferior, I was paralyzed with fear and choked
by grief that I could not even identify.
With no wisdom or experience to draw on, I began a
decades-long detour of trying to imitate what I believed to be my big sister’s superior
qualities and ideals. Looking back, I suppose this made sense at the time.
After all, she had done a better job of winning my parents’ and others’
approval than I ever had. My sister, therefore, became the model of whom I
should be; her life the template of what my own life should look like. With my faulty
illusions in complete control, I strove to fit myself into someone else’s
formula for living.
The next 30 years - though rich and fulfilling in many areas
- were marked by my harsh and unrelenting self-judgment, countless
disappointments and unmet expectations, and an abundance of negative drama.
Inside me was an enduring undercurrent of unhappiness. It all finally culminated
in the deterioration of my marriage, after 17 years together and having three
children with the person I had chosen for a husband.
The wonderful thing about crises, however, is that they can
result in positive, fundamental changes in a person, depending on how the
individual responds to them. In my case, I finally became humble enough to be
teachable. And did I ever have a lot to learn about loving myself! The lessons
continue today, and I keep paying attention because they are directly related
to my peace and happiness, not to mention my continued survival. Thank God.
My big sister – I love her still and more than ever! But the
way I love her today doesn’t compel her to be my mother or my perfect-life
model anymore. Bless her for being that when I needed it. In a very real way, I
owe her my existence. Our childhood bond gave me joy that I could remember in
later, sorrowful times. It was my sister
who taught me that love could be simple, could be full of freedom and laughter.
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