I’m not sure what I did for the twenty months before my sister Kate was born, or what I would have done if she’d never showed up on the scene.
I do know that without her, I’d be more selfish, more boring, less well-read, and much worse at managing conflict. (Shhh…Don’t tell her this, but I’d also have spent much more time getting lost).
We’ve shared our first year at university, living in an enormous empty house in Jerusalem. We’ve shared the same job: shuttling back and forth from caring for a 97-year-old gem of a lady, rarely seeing one another and staying connected (laughing, venting, crying together) over the phone. We know by experience that two are better than one: we seemed never to crash at the same time. One of us was always okay enough to pick up the other when she was down.
With a sister (especially a sister who turns into a traveling buddy), you have to get along. With a sister (especially a sister who’s also a treasured friend), there’s too much invested to bail out now.
The commitment was an enormous gift: it gave us a safe place in which to fight comfortably and learn to fight well.
Elisabeth Adams 