“The cobra just arrived.”
My sister’s text read. For a moment it sounded like a coded message for a secret operation I didn’t remember I was part of. Then I realised she meant the little figurine I’d sent my nephew for Christmas a while back. Mystery solved.

Our lives are busy enough that most of our messages feel like small puzzles to decode. Still, even her shortest texts remind me of our bond. At least she still writes actual words and not a string of emojis like my son does.

We’re seven years apart, which meant we grew up permanently out of sync. When I was a teenager, she was the kid trailing behind wanting to join. When I went overseas after college, she was a high-schooler in Korea juggling cultures and textbooks.

It wasn’t until my son went to the US that we found ourselves under the same roof again. Even then, I mostly saw her sprinting between meetings and refilling her coffee. That was our version of “quality time.” But there was a comfort in the mundane.

Becoming parents nudged us closer. But it took me hitting mid-life, watching my own kid leave home, and living through enough ups and downs to finally see her world. Only then did I start acting like the older sister. Before that, she often played that role for me. When I panicked, she calmed me — not the other way around. Growing up as an only child for seven years left me with a slightly egocentric streak, which she tolerated with surprising maturity.

We’re different in many ways. She takes her time with decisions; I tend to leap headfirst. She weighs her words; I throw mine at people. People say we look nothing alike, yet somehow we share the same “air,” something that makes others instantly recognise us as siblings.

Sisterhood is complicated. You compare, you admire, you try not to become too similar, but life has a way of overlapping you anyway. Sometimes she says things with a hint of old frustration, and I wonder if pieces of our story still sit unresolved. When I left home, she was the one left behind to deal with her struggles. I didn’t see it then.

Perhaps it was inevitable.
As the first child, I always felt like I was paving the way for her. Much of my life felt like collisions. Every experience was a first time for me, and for our parents.

I was the guinea pig, the trial and error. She watched from a distance and slalomed past obstacles I crashed into. My parents were more understanding with her, which is natural; they had matured too. Still, there must have been a bit of jealousy in me about her getting it easier. And perhaps a bit of hurt in her about me not being there in the moments she needed me most.

She was a long-wanted sibling, but when she finally arrived I was instantly jealous. I still remember her sitting in one of those coin-operated toy cars at a shopping mall, my parents smiling around her. Something surged in me and I pushed the car harder than I should have. It jumped, she fell, and I panicked so badly that I ran off and hid in a toilet cubicle. Not my proudest moment, but probably the true beginning of our complicated dance as sisters.

Over time, my sister’s presence grew clearer to me — not just as someone “in relation to me,” but as someone I genuinely respect and care for. Someone with her own story. I find myself thanking my parents for bringing her into the world. Long after they’re gone, we’ll still be there for each other. We tolerate, we try to understand, even when we disagree. The tie is unbreakable.

So when her message popped up — “The cobra just arrived” — it was meant as a simple thank you. But it also felt like a small gesture of closeness, the kind we didn’t always have.

Of all things, it’s a tiny plastic cobra that sneaks into our lives and keeps us connected. Not a deep conversation, not a long call. Just a toy snake and a text that makes me smile.