My Story
Sometimes, life as a big sister just doesn’t seem fair
Terry Wolfisch Cole, 52, is a mother, writer and story teller. She enjoys baking, yoga and playing mahjong.
ONE HOT DAY I WAS PLAYING with the kids next door, and I found out that in other people’s houses, the older kids had later bedtimes. I was five years old, and my sister Lisa was two years younger.
I go to my mother with my new-found information, and I advocate for policy change. I am denied.
This big-sister thing is not what it’s cracked up to be. Every time we do something that we’re not supposed to
do, I get into more trouble. It seems everybody’s always paying attention to her – she’s little, she’s cute. And we have to go to bed at the same time, I’ve had it!
So, I go to my room, and I take my white vinyl Partridge Family sleepover suitcase, and I put it on the bed, and I start to pack. Into the suitcase go Nancy Drew and Amelia Bedelia – I was an early reader – and some Barbies, and by the time I’m done, there is no room left for clothes.
But I’m leaving forever, so I know I’m going to need a wardrobe. And I put on two pairs of underwear first, because you’ve got to change, right? A pair of pants, a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, a hoodie, a raincoat, and over it all a crocheted poncho with fringes. And I go downstairs. My mother is in the kitchen. She looks up and asks if I’m running away. I told her yes.
She’s not nearly as upset by this as I feel she should be.
She looks at me and says, “Are you going to Grandma Sylvia’s?” which is the only other place I know. It’s not even two kilometres away. I can’t believe she can figure this out. She’s like some kind of witch!
I don’t answer her. I go out the front door and down the driveway. Now, remember, it’s the 1970s and they have not yet invented suitcases with wheels, and mine is full of books.
So, with every step, I’m dragging my suitcase. I go down the driveway, with every step, I’m sweating and dragging and sweating and dragging. I’m so intent on my mission that I don’t realise that my mother is about 20 metres behind me, following and waving concerned citizens away.
Finally, I get to number 73, Grandma’s apartment building. I go up the stairs, and before I even knock, the door opens.
My grandma tells me she’s very happy to see me, but I’m certainly not living there forever. And I realise my mother has called ahead and I have been betrayed.
My grandma says, “Do you want a drink as long as you’re here?”
She goes to get me some juice, and I’m standing in her living room taking off my layers, and my mother comes sweeping in. And she sits down in my grandfather’s wingback chair, and she pats her lap. She says, “Come here.” I don’t want to because I am righteously peeved, but I’m hot and I’m five, and I get on my mother’s lap. She pushes my hair back behind my ear, and she says, “Sweetheart, what is it? Why have you left? Why have you run away?”
Every time we do something we are not supposed to do, I get into more trouble … she’s little, she’s cute
And it all comes tumbling out: “It’s not fair and all the time with Lisa, I get into trouble and she doesn’t … and we should not have the same bedtime!”
And my mother, who has always known me better than I know myself, takes my hot, red little face in her hands, and she says to me, “Sweetheart, I don’t want you to be so miserable.” She says, “You came first. If it’s that hard for you living with Lisa, tomorrow morning I will call the orphanage and we’ll send her away.”
I can read. I know what an orphanage is. I start to cry, and I beg her, “Don’t send my sister away to an orphanage!” My mother reluctantly agrees that we’ll all go home and give it another try.
That night, my mother feeds us scrambled eggs for dinner, and she gives us a bath and puts us both to bed at the same time, as she will for many years to come.
And in those years to come, Lisa and I will grow to be two halves of the same whole, through adventures and concerts and boyfriends and divorces and death and everything. But once in a while, we’ll have a fight. And to this day, if I turn over my shoulder and say, “Mum, Lisa’s being mean to me!” my mother always answers in the same way. She says, “You had your chance.”
I can read. I know what an orphanage is. I start to cry and I beg her, “Don’t send my sister away”