Mei4

I have an older sister whom I am very close to and care for.

 

It is a tradition as well as a common practice in China that older siblings call their younger siblings by name and younger siblings call their older siblings by relation. The same things hold true in our family except my sister calls me Mei (in the fourth tone) that means younger sister.

 

Last night I sent my brother an email asking if my sister would stay with mom next Monday because we did not want mom to spend the first wedding anniversary without dad all by herself. I went to bed afterward. Unable to fall asleep immediately, I lay awake in bed and somehow thought about my sister.

 

I had been used to being called Mei for as long as I could remember, and had not given much thought about it. It had simply meant a way of my sister getting my attention, but now the simple one word sounded so touching and meaningful to me. It made me feel close to her even though I was half the world away from her, and feel young even though half my life had slipped by.

 

When we grew up under the same roof, we were good friends for most of the time, occasional enemies for short moments. If you have grown up with a sister, who, especially, was not much older than you are, you know what I mean. Nonetheless, the older we get, the deeper my love grows for her. Her resemblance of our mom, the appearance, voice, gesture, even the way of walk, draws me even closer to her, very emotionally. She is completely a clone of our mom, only younger, thinner and taller. One day of the past winter during my stay in China, to attend my father’s funeral and do my best to help my family get through the most difficult time, I sat diagonally across from where my sister was sitting. She was reading a magazine or something. Realizing, again, how much she had resembled my mother struck me so much that, ridiculously, I thought to myself, she is my mom, too, in a certain way and she ought to stick around long enough till I am very old. She was diagnosed with breast cancer two years earlier. Surgery had been performed on her, which was then followed by radiation and chemotherapy. Nowadays, she is still recovering, making visits to doctor offices on the monthly basis and taking medications daily.   

 

Back to the old time, I was too young to appreciate her. I constantly grumbled about her asking me do certain housework, those kind that many girls did to help out around the house back then, while our younger brother did almost nothing. (Funny enough, my brother now is a gourmet cook for leisure and a “babysitter” to his wife. I mean, he takes such a good care of his wife that she hardly believes her husband almost did no contribution to any housework or whatever.) I do not remember she had ever demanded me do things, only consented with me, “Want to dust furniture or sweep floor? Rinse rice or clean vegetables?” I whined a lot, without success in getting away from the work, but I managed to do as less as she allowed me to. Now I am thinking it had not been fair for her, for she is not much older than I am after all. I once wished I were a boy so I would have been free of the tedious, seemingly endless work.

 

Though I caused a lot of arguments, I forgot them the moment I moved onto something else, while she seemed taking time to digest the unpleasantness before putting it behind. One time, we argued again for something I do not remember now. The next day, she came back home from school with a book tucked under her arm. She purposefully poked the book in my direction and flashed it for a second or two. “You’ve got the book?” I shrieked with joy. It was a popular book, being hotly circulated among the girls in the school. Still pretending not having seen me or heard me, my dear sister inserted the book into her backpack, the forbidden territory for me to reach. Darn, how could I have missed the smirks on her face? She is claiming victory again! I retreated, seeming defeated, but knowing the book would not leave the house without me finishing it first.

 

One of my sister’s strategies of overpowering me was to shoot me an impossible question, “In what-year-what-month-what-day, and at what-hour-what-minute-what-second, did I ever say (or do) that?” Blunted by the annoying blow, I could only splutter, “I…I…I… YOU…YOU…YOU…YOU just did. You knew you did.” “If you can’t tell, it doesn’t count.” She would say, triumphantly. Thank my dear dad who came to the rescue, “Xiao Jun, you can’t ask her that kind of questions. It isn’t fair.” I had sincerely concluded, in all those early years I had spent with her, in grandma’s house and the childcare,  she must have made significant contributions my slight stutters. Listen to those impossible questions she had invented only for me.

 

My most talkative moment is at my sister’s present. I had been an entertainer of her and my brother for quite long before I left China. She laughed knowingly, showing the adoring smiles I could only see on her and our mom. Every word out of my mouth seemed funny to her, and she could never get enough of it. Last summer when I visited China, I acted like old me, unconsciously, spitting out the silly things I experienced in America, with arms waving, fists punching in the air, facial expression changing to add some flavors into the story and occasionally leaping to my feet to react the scene. I noticed, heart-meltingly, the very familiar smiles she was showing. It enchanted me and I knew I would treasure it forever.

 

As you can guess, now I wish I would be reborn as a girl just to be her younger sister again.