Sibling

My younger sister is delighted and said it is the happiest day of her life. She gave birth to a boy this morning.

And as the nurse pushed the gurney carrying her baby out from the operating theatre, I rushed in my eagerness to take a peek. I was so overjoyed to meet my baby's cousin. The truth of the matter was, I was reading Only-Child Experience and Adulthood when I waited outside the operating theatre.

I was a middle-child of three children, and have been struggling to imagine my baby being an only child. I would not go so far as to say that the only-child must be spoilt. In no way am I suggesting a bad connotation of the phrase "only-child." Only-children are a a growing phenomenon. None of this is good or bad; it just is. Still, I have always loved the chance to become a brother who understands his sister from head to toe. After all these years, I still find myself calling up my kindergarten memory of saving all the pleasant tea time snacks to bring home for my younger sister.

Nearly nine months ago, I made a phone call to my sister and had a casual talk. In a minute or so, there came a signal, like a jerk on the string, that she's expecting a baby. Though it seems like just a wild guess (okay, maybe my secret wish) when my sister herself had not seen the two lines on the pregnancy test, it's actually true when I proved it by asking my wife to show it by ultrasound the next evening.

Everybody in my family thought that I am prescient and awfully good about crystal ball. "It's simply a brother who knows his sister well," I replied.