When sibling rivalry comes up in conversation, I can’t help but raise an eyebrow because I’m completely in the dark about what it actually means.
Sibling squabbles? Absolutely not! Why on earth would I compete with my sister? She’s the shining star in this sister-sister duo, deserving every ounce of praise I heap on her. She’s a million times better, nicer, and more talented than I am. In every conceivable way, she’s light-years ahead of me. And I truly mean it.
She is ten years older, so I grew up as her live doll. She took me for walks in the park, made sure I stayed in the shade, and protected me from all kinds of harm—including mosquitoes, well-intentioned old women, and ill-intentioned old men. She loved me (and still does) so much that she often sacrificed her dates, swallowed her frustration on my behalf, and consistently put my needs before her own.
Raised in a family that took their Catholic vows seriously—the kind that attends church fifty-four Sundays a year, plus the Midnight Mass—she’d sit next to me in the front pew, making sure I got a good look at the spectacle and a whiff of incense. But there was also a practical reason. Whenever she went to Communion, I’d scream so loudly that it could wake the saints on the plinths and scare off the pigeons in the rafters, because I had to keep her in my line of sight at all times.
When I was ten, she got engaged to her childhood sweetheart, a firefighter and a really nice guy, who bought her a platinum ring with tiny diamonds and a pearl. It might not have been real platinum, and the diamonds could have been cheap zirconia or even glass beads from a cereal box, but I thought it was the fanciest thing I’d ever seen. One day, I slipped it on my finger and paraded it around the school playground like Cinderella whose slipper had just been found.
“I’m getting married,” I told my friends, who responded with a symphony of oohs and ahs, marveling both at the ring and at the fact that at the tender age of ten, I was already on the fast track to matrimony.
And then we dashed off to play hide-and-seek, acting like we were the world’s most dramatic bridesmaids at my totally made-up wedding. In one of those “hides,” I must have misplaced the dazzling gem, never to lay eyes on it again, no matter how much “seek” I did. Ta-da! It vanished, much like my hopes of ever finding it.
At first, I hoped my sister wouldn’t notice it was missing.
“Have you seen my ring?” she asked after searching the apartment.
“Which ring are we talking about?” I asked, but she just gave me the look that said,
“Nice try, sis, but I can smell the fibs from a mile away! So just ‘fess up!”
That girl could read me every time, like I was one of those comprehension tests she breezed through in school,
When I finally “fessed up”, you’d think she’d rage, rant, and maybe even spank me. She didn’t. She just cried for two days, and it broke my heart. I swore that day I’d never do anything to make my sister cry again.
Of course, my sister isn’t an angel, and she sometimes drives me up the wall with her flair for the dramatic and her obsession with everything being spick and span. But that pales in comparison to her support during tough times and her endless affection for me.
There was one time when she really pushed my buttons. It was one Easter when she didn’t get any treats. Instead, all the delicious, beautifully wrapped bunnies lounging on soft cotton-ball beds in wicker baskets were mine to enjoy. Back in the day, we used to split the goodies, but that year Mom declared she was too old for chocolate treats. She was about to start her first job, so she should buy her own “source of tooth decay,” Mom said. That was the grown-up thing to do—pay for life’s little pleasures and their consequences.
I wasn’t a big fan of chocolate, but I enjoyed collecting the foil-wrapped animals as decorations. I would place them on the shelf, where they seemed to wink at me through the glass, all dressed in cheerful, colorful jackets.
My sister, on the other hand, was a chocoholic, and she insisted we share the treasure, just as we shared our room and our parents. So why not the bunnies?
“Just hand over one silly bunny. Pretty please,” she pleaded, but I was as stubborn as a mule on a diet.
“My precioussss!” I let out a hiss at her, channeling my inner Gollum, ready to pounce on that ring (not the one I lost, obviously).
One day, we were gathered around the table, indulging in a classic Polish Sunday lunch of dumplings smothered in meat and gravy, accompanied by a duo of cabbage dishes and some stewed strawberries, when, out of nowhere, the whole apartment decided it was time for a bit of a shimmy. Back in the day, we lived in Silesia, a coal-mining hotspot in Poland, where furniture would break into spontaneous dance thanks to frequent tremors. The building would do a little thump-thump jive, the lamps would sway like they were at a party, the glass in the window frames would vibrate, and ten seconds later, the ground would calm down with no damage at all. No big deal.
I took a peek at the shelf, and holy rabbit! All the bunnies I had painstakingly arranged were sprawled out as if they had just lost a race! I strolled over to the sideboard to find that all my chocolate bunnies were sporting a rather unfortunate lack of tushies! They were nothing more than facades! My sister went on a snack attack, devouring their adorable little tushies and leaving only the shiny foil-wrapped fronts behind! If it weren’t for that little shake, I might have missed the fact that my devious older sister had maimed them.
I eventually forgave her, and later that day she polished them off while I kept the foil wrappers.
When I was 21, I left to study abroad and met my husband. It meant we saw each other only every few years. Yet whenever we met, it felt like no time had passed at all. We had so much to catch up on, but best of all, we still laughed at the same old jokes, recalled the bum-less bunnies, and remembered how I lost her engagement ring or how she tried to convince me that the tooth fairy was real – but that is a subject for another story.
Years later, Mom, a widow, became ill, and I was too far away to care for her. Throughout that time, my sister was Mom’s rock, even if it meant traveling a thousand miles each month. When we realized it was no longer feasible to keep Mom at home alone, we agreed to place her in a nursing home. We split the bills equally, but my sister took on the majority of the burden of visiting and managing her care. Despite the distance, my sister stayed committed to ensuring our mother received the best possible care in her final years.
Each month, she would mail me a handwritten list of expenses, itemized down to the last cent. I often told her it wasn’t necessary, but knowing how carefully she tracked everything, I realized it helped her feel at ease.
People’s heroes can be historical figures, artists, or even fictional characters from books or movies, so I guess it’s unusual to write a paean to one’s sister, given the sibling rivalry people talk about. But I feel my sister deserves her spotlight—in black and white, on paper or online.
She will probably never read it unless I translate it for her and send it in a letter, since she is nearly computer illiterate. Because I feel so lucky to have her as my sister, I want to give her a public shout-out for the incredible impact she has had on my life. Even though I can’t shake the feeling of being cheated by the Easter bunnies with their missing derrieres, I guess I’ll have to hop along.
P.S. By the way, my sister’s name is Ursula.
This was written by our contributing writer, J.B. Polk.
Cover Image Source: Unsplash, Marek Studzinski
The other image was provided by J.B. Polk of her and her sister Ursula.
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