When Julia was born, Helen was already a teenager. In truth, John and his wife had nearly given up hope of welcoming a child when Julia came along. It made them treat her even more special.
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They got her the best of everything and showered love and attention on her, making Helen, the older one who had formerly been the only recipient of all their affections, feel very neglected.
When she clocked 18, her mother passed away, leaving John to carry all the burden of taking care of the girls. It was a challenging task, and eventually, he ordered Helen to work as a dishwasher so there would be more income for them to live on.
Helen initially hated it and challenged her father on her need to do it. “Why do I have to do that? I don’t see other kids doing that, they’re all going to college,” Helen told her father one day.
“You’re 18 now Helen, you have grown and you need to learn how to be useful to other people now,” he told her.
“You mean you and Julia,” Helen said before she walked away from him that day.
They faced off like that two more times before Helen finally agreed to go to work. Her agreement was binding, which did not do anything to calm her jealousy towards Julia.
Helen saw Julia as a spoiled child, and it created a wedge between the two girls. They butted heads all the time because of Julia’s unwillingness to work, and it only got worse as they grew older.
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As a teenager, Julia only wanted to party all the time while Helen got used to working to support the family. She worked a few months as a dishwasher before getting hired as a kitchen assistant and then as a cook.
During the years she worked, Helen gave up her jealousy of Julia. She’d wanted a chance to also party and live life like her sister but growing up had taught her of how much more life could be.
She tried to caution her sister against the life she lived, but Julia always rebuffed her efforts, thinking she was simply bitter and jealous. John did not see anything wrong in pampering his miracle child, so Helen had no help, and eventually, she gave up on trying.
But when John passed away, things changed. His lawyer read the two girls his will, and the results were shocking, especially for Helen.
They learned that their father left Julia the house while Helen inherited a dirty old dish. Helen wanted to contest the will but decided that her sister, who was 21 at the time, needed whatever help she could get.
Instead, Helen approached her to advise her on what to do with her life and inheritance. “I think you should sell the house and use the proceeds for college. I never got to go but you can,” she told Julia.
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“Why are you butting into my business? You’ve always acted like you’re better than I am but I guess daddy didn’t think so,” Julia replied.
“Julia, I really think you should consider what I’m saying,” Helen begged, but her sister was in no mood to listen.
“I don’t need advice and even if I did, it would not be from a mere cook,” Julia mocked her older sister.
Helen was sad about it, but she decided to leave Julia to her affairs. The following week, she heard her sister sold their house and had moved to a more expensive apartment in the city.
“Good luck sister,” Helen whispered to herself after hearing the news.
Months passed, and Helen was doing great. Then one day, she was cleaning out her modest apartment when she happened upon the plate her father left her.
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She decided it shouldn’t go to waste, so she washed it and placed it in her rack, intending to use it on special occasions.
One day, she hosted a small gathering of friends at her place, and she served them with the plate her father left behind. One of the people present happened to be a historian, and when he saw it, he did a double-take.
He pointed it out to Helen, who was first skeptical. The next day, they both took the plate to an antique store where it was confirmed to belong to the Chinese dynasty and was very costly.
The plate was valued at two million dollars, and she sold it to a collector, making her a wealthy woman indeed. She put all the money into building a restaurant business, and in a few years, it was booming.
Meanwhile, Julia had no such luck. She spent all the money she got from selling the house at parties, and by the time the cash ran out, she had nothing going for her. Eventually, she became a homeless woman.
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One day, hungry for food, Julia went to a restaurant famous for giving handouts to homeless people. She got there very early because people told her that the owner gave more generously than her cronies, and she only ever did that for those who arrived early.
Imagine her shock when she reached the front of the cue and discovered that the owner people spoke kindly of was her sister Helen.
But the loving sister she was, Helen gracefully welcomed Julia with open arms. That day, she took her home and cleaned her up. Soon, she gave her a job at one of her restaurants and Julia never looked down on her again.
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What did we learn from this story?
- Laziness leads to unhappiness. Julia grew up getting pampered by her parents, so she couldn’t help but be lazy after they passed away. She wasted her money on frivolities until it ran out, leaving her on the streets begging for food. Her story could have been different had she invested in anything at all, but she did not, so she learned the hard way.
- Be humble enough to listen. Helen advised her sister to use the money gained from selling the mansion to attend college, but Julia, filled with the knowledge that she got way more than her sister did, refused to listen. She regretted it eventually, but thankfully Helen was there to help her out.
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