on siblings

what it's like to have a big sister

When Raymond was born, he was many things.

For a split second, he was the youngest creature on the planet, until an amoeba named Charles spawned on a mossy rock beside Waikiki Beach and seized the title for himself.

He was, more enduringly, a boy, a son, and a grandson. He was of average size and weight, the newest member of a brown-eyed-brown-haired family. He was heaving breaths and becoming more alive by the moment.

He was, without agency, born into these confusing identities and more. As such, it would take decades for Raymond to even begin to understand the roles that a son, friend, partner, father, and grandfather fulfills in one’s life.

But from the very beginning, the ooey gooey stinky beginning, one reality was effortlessly clear: he was the little brother to his big sister.

A relationship defined by symbiotic intrigue, the precursor to unconditional love. While Raymond was busy processing the world, his sister was expanding hers to make space for him.

Growing up, Raymond would have traded his older sister for an older brother in a heartbeat. He envied his friends who had tall, strong, mysterious older brothers. He wanted someone he could play soccer with, someone he could rely on to protect him in a fight, someone he could imagine becoming. Girls were lame and his sister was no exception.

But over time, those wants and desires began to fade, like old paint weathering on the wooden panels of a house. Eventually, they flaked off entirely. Twenty years of peeling revealed the core hue that had been there all along: I would not change a single thing about you.

To have a sibling is to constantly forget they exist, and yet, to have a sibling is also to pause during a solitary nighttime walk, thousands of miles apart, to stare up at the stars and wonder how much of the person I am today has been shaped by your hand?

To have a sibling is to simultaneously feel as a parent and a child to the same person. It’s to live in paradox. In a way, the grown-up sibling relationship remains bound by the same intrigue that shaped it’s genesis. You are so weird and different from me that I cannot imagine what it’s like to live as you. I can’t wait to see the beautiful things your future holds.

We often forget that our parents are living life for the first time; we should be more forgiving and understanding of their tendencies and mistakes. But it’s glaringly obvious that a sibling is living life for the first time because they constantly make terrible decisions—like believing that moving across the country for university is a good idea, or that one must be perfect to be loved. I trust we will learn and grow together.

Whoever said “in the end, you only have yourself” must not have had a sibling. I know I will always have my big sister—the one person I can rightfully claim forever with. I’ve always been here for you, I will continue to be there for you, until our last day.

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