Given.

Isn't it odd how sometimes the most profound moments of life come by when we least expect it?

Tonight was one of those profound moments.

Never has it occurred to my mind that I might one day face having to forgive my sister for destroying something I cherished so close to my heart. But tonight, the first night of the new year according to the lunar calendar coincidentally, I was.

My sister and I are living reflections of each other and worlds apart. We follow the same code of moral conduct, we share the same distaste for Lady Gaga the Illuminati queen, we are both weight-obsessed chocolate gluttons. But she does not feel the way I do or express herself the way I would. Where I would toss her stuff all over the floor, lock the doors to the room and curse her with my thoughts, she would instinctively steal and vandalize my property - and in the heat of her fury, that which I prized the most.

Do you think I was mad at her? I suppose it might reflect better on my self control if I admitted I hadn't been, but then I'd be lying. Even Scripture tells us Jesus got flaming pissed at times. And at that moment I was, enough to think of her most precious possession I could take the scissors to in turn
You can call me a coward for not finding it in myself to pay her back in kind. You're probably right. I never have had the guts to give others what they rightly deserve in the eyes of the world. I am a weakling, you see, content to accept everything as it is even if it might screw me over.

But at that moment, I guess I also found ourt that that which I truly gave a damn about not my sister or anyone else could have taken from me. For the treasure with which my heart lies does not belong to this world.

Thus armed with the revelation, I unlocked the doors, composed myself, prepared my one-hour speech and marched down the stairs to announce her undeserved pardon that was within my royal power to bestow.

You may think even less of me, for none of that came out. I could barely whisper that I forgave her. But that carefully worded speech was never even needed - not that the cowardly me would have been able to say it anyway.

My sister never apologizes to anyone, if my memory serves me right. Not honestly, not to me, not even to my mother in tears. And my sister never cries. We have grown too strong, too cold, too bitter to reveal our tears to others.
But most unexpectedly, not tonight.

I am always proud of her, but tonight I am even prouder. I have never considered her any less than me. Now I have reason to hope she might believe that. I did not deign to forgive her because it put me above her to do so. I did it because I'd have hated to reveal her in such a light to my parents, because she was sorry, because I know it would suck to he locked out of the room again, because she's my sister, because I love her.

And also because I'm actually grateful to her for teaching me something tonight.

My softhearted sobs have been reduced back to my flu-induced sniffs, but I don't think I am much bothered. I will sleep well in my own bed tonight and so will my sister.

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