the sister who got hitched

When I was six and my sister was three, I used to be so annoyed with the fact that my sister would follow me everywhere and copy everything I did. She wanted to ride the same bike I was riding. She wanted the same dress I was wearing. She wanted to join every make-believe game I was playing. At the same time, I made no effort to hide the fact that I would steal her limelight at every opportunity and that I was annoyed with her trying to be just like me. But still, she wanted us to be inseparable. That was when I realised that my sister is not just anyone in my life – this will be somebody who will stick around forever during the good, the bad and the really shit times.

Last weekend she got married. I will never think any guy would be ever good enough for her. But if such a guy exists, I think her new husband is the closest bet. It was a nice, relatively calm wedding, and nobody cried and everybody had a good time. More importantly, my sister was just so damn happy she was married. Why wouldn’t she be? She finally got hitched to her long time high school sweetheart, after more than eight years of dating.

That is one of the things that made her my complete opposite. The longest relationship I ever had was a year. Between her and me, we look nothing alike. She had always been the more compassionate sister. She was always happier with the little things in life. She was always more maternal. She had more faith in people than I ever did. Contrary to popular belief, she had always been the younger sister who had to compromise a lot for me. She was that tame, calm spirit who would sit in my room and listen patiently as I go through my wild expedition of adventures in life that has nothing to do with her. We shared secrets only we would ever know.

But of course there were fights. Today, in our twenties, we still fight over the remote control and clothes and life decisions and ‘why did you have to do that? You’re so annoying!’ arguments. Last month we had a friendly banter and ended up pulling each other’s hair. But the beauty in this dynamic is that it is almost a full guarantee that as much as we will still argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes when we’re in our forties, this relationship will stay. It will not go anywhere. Even as life, age, children and hardships chip away bits and pieces of ourselves and who we used to be, that strange, unexplainable and almost invincible bond will surely not be eroded by it. Isn’t it such a comfort? In this world where too many things are uncertain, it is a good feeling to have a sense of security that some things will probably never change and will always stay constant.

And so this week, as my sister starts paving her way as a married woman and future mother (oh God I’m not ready for nieces/nephews!), I can’t help but be ecstatically happy for her. As much as she had grown, I will always remember her as the person who decided to pretend to be a bird for a week because I wanted to play a make-believe game where we were birds living in a nest in a tree (we chirped, jumped around the sofa and everything). My life’s memories are speckled with vivid memories of my sister, and what a joy it has been. I am excited to see what the next phase of our lives will bring.