My sister taught me how to tie a bow. It’s the bow that starts out with two loops that get twisted around each other—the one that’s easier to tie. My sister always tried to make things easier for me. She also taught me how to spell “circus.” That was a toughie in the first grade.
There is an eight-year difference between the two of us, with no one else in between, so my sister has also been somewhat of a mother figure to me as well. We grew up in a home of Holocaust survivors—not always a fun place to be—and very often we served as refuges for each other. I was a welcome diversion. I’m sure it was not pleasant for her—I was the tag-along, the baby, the charge. (Come to think of it, she might have gotten some sadistic pleasure out of threatening to suffocate me with a pillow when she babysat me.) But I can’t remember her protesting too often about dragging me to the movies or on shopping trips. I think my mother so often placed her in that maternal role because it gave her a break—she was too busy dealing with the realities of her life, and her past—but she claimed she was merely trying to make us best friends. And she succeeded. My sister was my role model. I turned to her for advice on just about everything—friends, clothing, makeup, boys. And when we grew older she was my go-to person for advice on marriage and motherhood. She’s a great mom to my nephew and niece, but we like to joke that I am her first child. I did a lot of my growing up right alongside them. And as in all mother-daughter relationships, there have been clashes. There was many a time where I wanted to be treated like a sister, an equal—not a child. Ultimately our relationship had to evolve and I had to learn how to establish my independence and claim my role of adult. It hasn’t always been easy, or successful, but we’ve managed to work things out. And sometimes, not too often, I even take the role of “big sister.”
There is an eight-year difference between the two of us, with no one else in between, so my sister has also been somewhat of a mother figure to me as well. We grew up in a home of Holocaust survivors—not always a fun place to be—and very often we served as refuges for each other. I was a welcome diversion. I’m sure it was not pleasant for her—I was the tag-along, the baby, the charge. (Come to think of it, she might have gotten some sadistic pleasure out of threatening to suffocate me with a pillow when she babysat me.) But I can’t remember her protesting too often about dragging me to the movies or on shopping trips. I think my mother so often placed her in that maternal role because it gave her a break—she was too busy dealing with the realities of her life, and her past—but she claimed she was merely trying to make us best friends. And she succeeded. My sister was my role model. I turned to her for advice on just about everything—friends, clothing, makeup, boys. And when we grew older she was my go-to person for advice on marriage and motherhood. She’s a great mom to my nephew and niece, but we like to joke that I am her first child. I did a lot of my growing up right alongside them. And as in all mother-daughter relationships, there have been clashes. There was many a time where I wanted to be treated like a sister, an equal—not a child. Ultimately our relationship had to evolve and I had to learn how to establish my independence and claim my role of adult. It hasn’t always been easy, or successful, but we’ve managed to work things out. And sometimes, not too often, I even take the role of “big sister.”
