Margaret Engel, "This I Believe" Essay

This I Believe

I believe that Shakespeare was right when he said that no legacy is as great as honesty. It is the legend carved on my father's tombstone. It is the value that first grew in my heart when, as a five-year-old, I tried to kill my twin sister.

Remembering when you first learned right from wrong probably dates to early toddler hood. I dimly remember at 19 months encouraging my identical twin to stand on our high chair tables and jump off during a large family Thanksgiving. She jumped. I didn't. That would be wrong.

Three years later, in moving on to attempted sororicide, I developed the realization that honesty must be the best policy.

It was a hot summer's day in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. We were amusing ourselves by packing a picnic lunch to eat on the lawn. But egg salad sandwiches weren't what I was craving. What I wanted, with huge jealousy, was the Coty Beauty Set that our oldest sister had been given for her birthday. I snuck into her room and admired all the intriguing bottles in their fantastic pink plastic zippered case. I couldn't help myself. I stole the bottle labeled "toilet water."

It was mysterious, why you would buy a bottle of fragrant water just to pour it into the toilet. Instantly, I thought of a better use. I would make my twin sister drink it.

In years since, I've thought a lot about why I got a red aluminum glass out of the kitchen, emptied the Coty fragrance into it and demanded that my sister swallow it. Going through a sibling rivalry power struggle? Cranky? Just wanted to see if I was persuasive or threatening enough to make her do it? Bucking for the Evil Twin Award?

Whatever. I gave it to her. She drank it, quickly throwing up and summoning my overworked mom (did I mention there were five of us under the age of nine?). She was grim, angry and demanded to know what happened.

Enter my crystalline moment. As a champion liar in "I Doubt It" card games, I had past success with deviousness. What to do? But this time, a moment of certainty washed over me with a clarity of our town's air-raid signal, which sounded daily at 6 p.m.

I knew, as they say, with every fiber of my being, that telling the truth (one theft, one poisoning) was not only required, but it was my only salvation.

Honesty worked. I had ample time to ruminate over my choice, as I was put in a wooden rocker facing a corner for one long hour as my twin recovered in our bedroom. My older sisters spread the news of my perfidy to the rest of the members of The Girls Whistling Army. I was demoted to private.

While rocking in the corner, I had a conversation with my inner self. Some kernel of intelligence made me understand that honesty is the only path. It is my earliest moral memory. It allowed me to believe that honesty will walk you out of trouble. It's taken all the years of my life to practice honesty to prevent getting into trouble in the first place. I'm still learning.