My wife and I were speaking at lunch with an old friend whose sister had recently died. The sister had been a significant problem for her as an adult, but she mentioned unbidden that she missed her. I mentioned that another woman of mutual acquaintance had said the same thing about her sister who had caused her a lot of distress over many years. She still missed her.
The woman at lunch was similar to her sister in important ways. They were close in age, had gone to the same Seven Sisters college and majored in similar subjects. They were similarly smart, similarly pretty, similar in demeanor, though this changed over the years. "I reflected on how much trouble she had been to me over the years, but I thought how I am glad I didn't get here genetics." The specific reference to genetics made it more jarring to me. I have heard people say "I wouldn't want his life," or "I wouldn't have wanted to go through what she went through," but not heritability in specific. I mentioned the conversation to the other friend today, who also didn't want that sister's genetics.
Yet not until yesterday did I apply the lesson to myself. What would life have been like if I had gotten my brother's genes?
1 comment:
I’ll admit I’ve thought about this often, but unfortunately mostly in places where I got the short end of the stick. How would my highly active siblings deal with it if they had horrible migraines or their eyeballs ripped themselves apart a few nights per week? It’s harder to look at what I have that they don’t, though it’s probably the better way. I always try to teach Finn to look at who has less than you, not more.
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