by RubyLane

Created on: August 11, 2011   Last Updated: August 13, 2011

It would be too easy to blanket it as “sibling rivalry” and close the issue. The relationship has been built through the years; layered with love, jealousy, competitiveness, hate, empathy, guilt, looping back to love and so on….. 

We have been sisters for 58 years. She was the only girl with three older boys until I arrived on the scene eight years into her precious life and took away the only daughter syndrome.

She was in her full flush of her sweet sixteenth year when I turned eight.   Up until then I was unaware of  the subtle issues.  My mother, bless her heart,  never once showed any bias towards either of us but only love.   The teenage issues were starting for my sister, as I remained still the adorable innocent child skipping through the park on a cold afternoon.  I needed only simple diversions to amuse me where as for her, the issues of house parties, dinner dances, boys, clothes, high heels became sensitive subjects.

My mother was an incredible seamstress.  Never having had instructions, she not only knew the human body, but sculptured fashionable clothes to compliment our flat chested, short wasted, low slung, wide bottom uncommon figure.   So between us two girls of different age group, we challenged her with our varied likes and dislikes.  Left over material from a party dress she made for my sister, became a gingham dress for me.  Of course I was banned from wearing it the same time, so I lost out on a lot of games that was being played.  One disastrous day, having been bullied to silence on some issue, I daydreamed that I would get a pair of scissors and cut all her dresses to shreds.  I never did get to act out my fantasy partly I was never viscous enough and partly I would see my mother slaving away at night sewing by hand, beautiful immaculate stitches under powerful light. To destroy that would have been too cruel to my dear mother.

Competition in those early days were small, but a significant one was during the Cambridge Oxford boat race in 1962 . The race in April was much awaited as this was going to be the first televised sporting event.  On our black and white television, we crouched on the floor in my parent’s boudoir..  My sister cheered for Oxford for she had an Adonis lookalike interest studying Law. So of course I had to take the lesser side . A very tight race, Cambridge

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