Sibling Rivalry

I'm sure I am not alone when I say, sometimes being the "baby" sister really sucks. I grew up the youngest of three kids; two girls and one boy. There is a pretty big age difference between me and my siblings; fifteen years between my brother and me and thirteen years between me and my sister. I used to dance around singing that I was a love child because my parents had me so late in life; only to be put in my place by my sister's sarcastic snort and retort that I was, in fact, a mistake...ha, ha, ha. I never resented my sister's backhanded remarks because I loved her and always thought her remarks were made in fun.

As a child, my brother was away in the service and our relationship never truly bloomed. There was this gap between my brother and I that just could never bridge. However, my sister and I were very close and I always looked up to her; she was like this idol to me; everything that I would strive to be as a young person and later as an adult. Maybe I was a little too naive to think that a human being could do no wrong, but in my eyes, my sister was the epitome of perfection and no one could tell me otherwise...not even my sister. As I got older and look back on it now I think she tried, in her own way, to jump off that pedestal that I placed her on without completely crumbling my world. As I got older, our perfect relationship seemed to become strained and the closeness that we once shared began to slowly fade. Somewhere in there my own independent thoughts began to prevail and I found that we were no longer connecting and agreeing on things that I thought we always saw eye to eye on. I found myself knee-deep in a continuous cycle of sarcasm, condescension and intolerance, all of which resonated from my sister onto me. What I thought were just growing pains between my her and I, I later realized went much deeper.

Now to give you a little background, my brother and sister were born and raised during a time when my parents did not make a lot of money, the family struggled financially and there were not many extravagances. I, on the other hand, being the late bloomer, came during a time when the family income had grown and my parents were able to give a little more. I can't say, without a doubt, that this wasn't the cause behind the strife that later plagued my relationship with my siblings. The whole "you got more than I did" mentality seems to be the going theme with a lot of families that followed the same "rags to better rags" path as my family followed. My family, also, like many other families out there, had disputes and dysfunction. Each of us walked away with baggage from our family's history and each of us was forced to take that baggage and live with it, deal with it, suffer because of it and try to reconcile our lives despite it.

What I believe has happened through the years is that my status as the "baby" has never been extinguished and with that I have become perpetually naive and inexperienced in the eyes of my older siblings, especially my sister. It seems that because of my age and my so-called "privileged" childhood, I could not possibly understand anything that SHE has suffered through or experienced as an adult. I could never speak intelligently on any subject that SHE is knowledgeable on because my life has not equaled hers in terms of heartache or struggles and No matter what pain or suffering I have experienced in my own life's journey, my status as "the baby" it seems will forever preclude me from being empathetic to HER trials and tribulations. I go to college and leave home, I get married and have a baby, I even buy my own home and yet none of this allows me any transition into adulthood. Sadly, I am now approaching the age of 40 and I am still dealing with the same belittling and intolerance; the only difference now is that my tolerance level for it has diminished.

I sometimes have to force myself to put things into perspective and not let it get to me. I repeat in my head that this is not my problem, it's her problem, but that doesn't make the interaction any easier when I am drowning in the smugness of her under-the-breath remarks, sarcastic smirks or blatant indignation. So, what do I do? There is obviously some deep rooted resentment there that I have tried to address only to be shut down.

I don't want to lose the relationship that I have with my sister but I understand that it must change in order for "us" to survive. Well, if I follow my mom's advice I might as well accept the status quo because "family can be a difficult pill to swallow but it's one that you will have to take for the rest of your life." I don't know if I agree with that statement. Yes, my sister will always be my family but if the resentment continues to grow, so will the distance and then what will be left?.... two people who share the same DNA but nothing else and how sad is that?

I want my sister to understand that I am no longer a child and the only child eyes that I look out from are my daughter's. I want her to understand that, although my childhood and childhood sufferings were different than hers that they are, in no way, less significant. I want her to know that I can relate and empathize with her life difficulties although my journey through life and personal experiences may have been different. Most importantly, I want her to swallow something that she has fed me for years and that is that there are so many people in this world whose only goal in life is to cut you down; it is family's job to build you up, to guide you and to help you to weather the storms of your life. So, I have decided that I will fight through this, I will brave this storm in hopes that my sister will, one day, see and respect me for the woman that I have become and revel in the fact that she, herself, helped mold the woman I am today. I will hold strong because I love my sister and life is too short to allow petty differences pull you apart from the ones you love. I will do this for me and for my sister because, after all, we are family.

Goodbye Camille

A few days ago I lost a friend to cancer. What a devastating blow for me considering I had just reunited with her after more than a decade of being apart. Her name was Camille and our friendship began in the halls of our fondly remembered high school, Morgan Park. When my class graduated I remember many of us naively promising to "KIP" (keep in touch) and stay friends forever; not knowing that life did not always permit fulfillment of such promises. You go your separate ways, go to college and/or start new careers, meet new people, start families and before you know it 10 years have passed and you have not spoken to half the people you went to high school with. If you're lucky though, you will have that one special person who was looked upon by your high school class as the ultimate leader and (in my case "she") will take on the difficult and sometimes tedious task of bringing you and your former classmates back together again....this is what we refer to as The Class Reunion (thanks Kaita).

Excuse my tangent, I digress...Camille and I weren't BFF's in high school but we had a mutual respect for one another; I was shy, quiet and subdued and Camille was loud, boisterous and sometimes bordering on obnoxious but never phony or fake, Camille was just.....Camille. Almost a year ago, before the birth of my daughter, my husband caught up with Camille via our high school alumni website. When he told me that she had cancer and was in the later stages, the only thing that ran through my mind was...."Damn!" How could I let so much time go by? Now instead of celebrating this great occasion of being reunited once again; it was overshadowed with this sadness and dread....well that's what I thought.

Camille and I had agreed to meet and catch-up and as I approached her home I felt anxious, what would I say? how would I act? would I break-down and cry? which is "so me" to do...the overemotional drama queen that I am. I felt a bit queasy and my hands were clammy as I rang her bell. Then, in an instant, the door opened and all the fear and anxiety was gone and overtaken with this huge smile and drowning embrace. I could not get in the door quick enough before Camille was jumping up and down and screaming my name and spitting her enthusiasm at seeing me after so many years. Where was the anxiety? the sadness and grief?....where was the cancer? Camille may have had cancer but the cancer definitely did not have Camille.

As we conversed about old times, I could not believe how unbelievably "together" this woman was. Here she was with stage four cancer, a single mom raising her teenage son on the day that she had decided to shave her head instead of watching her hair fall out because of the chemo and she was jubilant and vibrant and hopeful. How could I not be inspired by that? How could I embrace sadness in the midst of so much faith and life. Camille taught me that day to live my life everyday like it was the last. To love big, to laugh big and to live big. She said that when she found out that she had cancer she vowed that she would continue to live her life as if she did not have cancer and she did. She fought it but did not let a day go by without enjoying her son, her family...her life.

That visit was the last time I saw Camille but my memories of her will be of her booming voice bouncing off the walls of our high school hallways and that special day when we were reunited and laughed as we remembered the past and shared our hopes and dreams of the future. Now normally an event like this would cause me to begin to reflect and obsess on my own mortality but that's not what Camille would have wanted. Camille would say it's not about how you die but about how you lived. I can hear her now..."Live big Syl...live big."

My last visit with Camille, while bittersweet, was definitely eye-opening. With that knowledge that we aren't promised tomorrow, shouldn't we be behooved to live everyday as if it is our last? No more putting off until tomorrow what we can do today, no more holding petty grudges, no more allowing fear to stop us from fulfilling our dreams. I am sure as a human I will falter from time to time on living my life by these practices, but I sure as hell will try. LIVE BIG!

Thank you Camille. I will miss you.