Over two-thirds of Americans have at least one sibling. The relationship is one of the most important and usually the longest in a person’s life—typically longer than with parents, spouses, or children. So let’s celebrate our brothers and sisters on April 10, #NationalSiblingsDay.
To the outside world, we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.
Clara Ortega
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The siblings of people with dwarfism and disability are especially worthy of praise. As children, many siblings endure more public attention than they want and less attention from parents than they need. Parents love them just as much but, at times, the medical and other needs of their sibling with a disability are all consuming. To cap it off, siblings are often assigned extra duties to help out their brother or sister.
When I was writing “Dwarfs Don’t Live in Doll Houses,” the 1988 memoir of my childhood and young adult years, I asked my brother, Greg, and sister, Deborah, what it was like growing up with me. Here are some of their reflections:
It used to make me mad when people stared at you.
I received [a] bloody nose at school from Terry for teasing me about you. . . we had a fight and I came out second best.
It used to annoy me when people fussed over you, knowing that you thought them silly as well. . . but that kind of attention I never wanted anyway.
As for their response to being asked to do things for me—like carry my sun chair down to the beach or my book bag home from school—their recollections varied from annoyance to wincing when watching me carry a bag half my size. For the most part, I was independent and my disability wasn’t on their minds. “At home, I was the older sister and that’s how things were – just that.”
We enjoyed a happy childhood together in New Zealand, but as adults lived with our spouses in Australia and America. Despite the long distance, we continued to share our love and concern for each other. We have traveled thousands of miles to vacation together in all three countries. When visiting in the homes of my siblings, they made accommodations for Robert and I to be independent in the bathroom and kitchen.
As we have grown older and less mobile, Greg and Deborah have pushed wheelchairs, lifted scooters, and helped us up many stairs. In recent years, we have celebrated decade birthdays together with the destination chosen by the one with the birthday. Our 50th birthdays took us to Sydney, Australia; Key West, Florida; and Whangamata, New Zealand; our 60th birthdays were in North Carolina, New York, and Hawaii.
Why wait for your sibling’s birthday? Celebrate them his week. Share how much they mean to you.
For more of my writings, subscribe to my weekly blog at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/ Used print books of Dwarfs Don’t Live in Doll Houses are available on Amazon.com; an e-book is coming soon.
