Born to Feud

By the time I was two, the house was ringing with cries of, “She’s on my side of the couch!” or even, “She’s breathing my air!”

My sister and I would do whatever it took to annoy each other, as long as it was too subtle to show up on Ma’s radar. We would irritate each other even if it required long, convoluted planning; even if we weren’t really in the mood to fight; even if we knew the retaliation would be dire; even if it meant the other one was never going to forgive us. If you’ve never thought, “I love you but you must be destroyed,” you’ve never had a sister.

In spite of all that, it was nice growing up with a sister — someone to learn from, someone to lean on, someone to tell on. Living together taught me things that everybody needs to know (fairness and cooperation, how to settle arguments, and how to negotiate),  and especially things that every Jew needs to know (how to live with totalitarianism, oppression, condemnation, constant critical judgment, and people unwilling to compromise). And she was only in fourth grade at the time!

My sister and I trudged through childhood sharing strep throats and shampoo, arguing over the sizes of our desserts, locking each other out of the room, but mostly, competing for Ma’s and Ta’s affection. If they’d been really listening, they would have heard me davening, “Give me all the attention and all the toys and send Devorah to live with Grandma.” They weren’t that interested, though, and preferred to avoid the conflicts. “We love you both equally,” they claimed, but we never believed them. What did they think, that we lived in the Communist USSR?