Today is my sister Cindy's birthday. That inspired me to dip into the writing archives, and pull out this piece I wrote in 2010 for the Shore Magazine Christmas issue. It's my recollections of Christmas 1975. I think you may get a kick out of it...
My sister and I are only a year apart, and we were sworn
enemies.
We competed against each other for every conceivable thing
with a knock-down drag-out winner-take-all mentality that was nothing short of blood
sport; the winner taunting over the lifeless body of the vanquished opponent
until he or she yelled “Mooooom!”
Now that I’m a dad myself, of course, I’m being given my karmic rewards. My two
youngest sons fight every day. And listening to that constant bickering is like
being stabbed in the ears repeatedly. I can only imagine what my mother went
through in the 1970s. My fights with my sister weren’t as physical, but they
were certainly as loud. And they were probably even more emotionally vicious.
I’ll give you an example that has become family lore.
It was Christmas Eve 1975. That Christmas season my mother
came up with a great idea to help end the fighting. Cindy and I were to give
each other Christmas presents for the very first time. We were told to give
from the heart.
As a parent, I can see the logic. The mere act of thinking
about what the other sibling wanted, then spending our own money to make that
sibling happy, combined with the overall festiveness of the Holiday season HAD
TO tone down the viciousness.
That moment is captured forever on film. My dad had one of
those Super-8 home movie cameras and was eagerly filming every second of that
Christmas. My little brother was only five, so most of the silent film focuses
on him playing with his forts and cars, but then you can see my mom step in
front of the camera and point to my sister.
Cindy, age 11, was getting ready to open the present from
Ricky, age 12.
She smiles from ear-to-ear as she unwraps the present with
anticipatory glee. You can’t hear what she’s saying, but it looks like she’s
asking me if I wrapped the present myself. My dad pans over to my smiling
nodding face, before returning to focus on the lucky girl and her Christmas
gift from brother.
The box is oddly shaped and unlabeled.
“What is it?” you can see her mouthing.
She opens the box, and stops cold. She glares at me, then at the camera. It
doesn’t take a lip reader to see what she says next.
“A BABY BOTTLE!”
Just in case you couldn’t read her lips, the baby bottle
emerged, and Cindy stood up and fired that bottle at me—hitting me in the
midsection—which was no easy task because I was laughing so hard.
Then the camera pans to my glaring mother, none too pleased
at the development.
So what did my sister get me that Christmas? I honestly
don’t remember, but it was a normal gift.
I do remember what she got me the next year though: Pampers.
The year after that I bought her baby powder, and she gave me a pacifier.
Another year we exchanged baby wipes and Gerber baby food. The battle lasted
for the rest of the decade.
But you know what the story of my sibling rivalry with my
sister represents most to me? Hope. That’s right, hope. Hope that my boys will
eventually snap out of it the way Cindy and I did.
For us the thawing began thanks to my girlfriends in high school and college,
and eventually my wife, all of whom pointed out that I was being a jerk. It
thawed out forever when my kids were born. My sister turned out to be the most
caring and loving aunt imaginable to those boys. She lives just a few miles
away from us and spends time with them whenever she can. In fact, I have a
sneaking suspicion that they love her more than they love me—and I think that’s
wonderful.
Cindy and I actually get along great now. I probably see her
or talk to her on the phone four or five times a week.
And when I tell my boys that she and I used to fight, they don’t even believe
me. When they’re old enough not to copy their dad, I’ll prove it to them.
I’ll show them the film in the box labeled: “Christmas
1975.”
