Older Than My Older Sister
My only sister was 16 years older than me. After her birth, my mother spent 4 years in a tuberculosis sanitarium and had surgery to remove one lung and seven ribs. She was advised by doctors that she could not have another child. Eventually, she found a doctor that was supportive, and so I was born much later than my sibling.
I have passed the age at which my sister passed away 16 years ago. She was in poor health for many years. Her chair side table was covered with medications and supplements. There was a list a page long of things to be taken each day. Ultimately, her Type 2 diabetes led to kidney failure and repeated hospitalizations for dialysis, until the damage was too great.
We were not close. She disclosed to my wife near her time of death that she had resented my birth. There was good reason. Her early childhood was spent with a strange aunt, while my mother was in the sanitarium for four years. As a result, she clung to my mother and never really separated in a healthy way. I took away attention and was treated as a golden child. No question about it.
For me, there was some teasing from kids about having this adult sister who never moved away from home. She finally got an apartment of her own some 15 years after I moved out, several years after my Mother passed away from cancer. She never really worked for any length of time, and never conquered her anxiety around driving a car. She never dated or had a relationship.
One thing her life did was motivate me. I was determined to have a relationship, move out of home, get married and work for a living. My mother would have happily had me stay at home like my sister. I was married and living in another state by age 22. My sister also always stayed in the Pentecostal church where my uncle was the minister. I got out of that at 15. She was a hardcore Republican and I have always been a liberal Democrat. We cooperated in caring for my Dad to his final day, but had little other contact.
I am pretty healthy at this age, and look forward to lasting a while.