The Golden Child

Having genius for an older sister has not been easy. Especially when your sister is 12 years older than you and at the top of her class in nearly every subject. It was as if my life had already been set out for me. I started piano at the same age as Brooke and was even taught by the same instructor. I don’t remember much about those early lessons except the occasional exasperated sigh and the rueful shaking of his head when I struggled to master some skill. Her ghost always haunted these moments. We even went to the same elementary school. I was expected to accomplish the same if not more than she did. Brooke was called “the little math genius” as she gobbled up math competition prizes like I inhaled fruit jelly sticks. As if living in the shadow of the resident math genius wasn’t bad enough, I also received frequent doses of humble pie every time I was reminded of her prowess in chess competitions or her mopping up academic accolades on a yearly basis. Vainly and awkwardly stumbling in her footsteps wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that people’s expectations for me didn’t shrink with every futile attempt to duplicate her success. At every family gathering, everyone would stop by my seat after visiting my sister, gushing about how lucky I was to have a sister like that. My sister and I weren’t close at all when I was 5, and she was 17 and that gap only widened when she left to go to the US for college a year later. Now that the beautiful flower in full bloom was transplanted in South Bend, all the attention was focused on the shrinking violet whose inherent aversion to attention was directly

5

correlated to the amount of attention she received. One of the few people I could lean on during this time of insecurity was my grandma. She never compared me to my sister, not even once. Instead, she helped me develop my own interests. My grandma was the one who encouraged my talent at solving puzzles and building Legos.

6