Rima…(sigh)
I suddenly feel the big huge empty space you’ve left in my life.
Though some don’t grow up having a sister, I did.
“Where is my sister” is all I can think of all day.
There are no words that can explain how much I miss you and long to be in your presence…I need those giggling sessions, I need those phone calls where we make fun of mom and dad and the rest of the family. I need those talks where you tell me all about your new boyfriend and I shower you with advice you didn’t actually ask for. So typical of me. I still do that with everyone by the way, friends and strangers!
I wish you would’ve met Hana back when you were yourself before the illness. You would’ve been best friends, she would’ve been your perfect second sister, the one that you would go out shopping with all day and every week. I showed her your closet the other day, she was stunned by the fashionista you have been most of your life.
Oh how I wish you’ve met Naya. The bundle of joy that keeps us all smiling and in total love. Basil says he sees you in her. I think we all do. Her furiousness and short temper and need for constant attention. I’m wondering if she’ll have the “open radio channel” character of yours once she starts talking :p
I wish you were living in your apartment above me as dad has planned for us. We’d go visit each other in our PJs at the end of a long working day. In my head, you would’ve cooked a yummy meal for us every now and then like the old university days at mom’s and dad place. Ok that’s really wishful thinking, you would’ve been so married and pregnant by now and living in a much bigger apartment to fit your closet.
Well that’s all part of an imaginary world, not only fictional because you left us too soon but because we said goodbye to dad a year before you left and because mom is no longer mom.
Maybe some intellegent merciful power exists after all that made you ill way before dad got sick and mom lost her memory, I don’t think you would’ve been able to survive that at all. Mom and dad were your whole world. And you didn’t have my compartamentalized mind that keeps me sane.
Rima, mourning you is very hard. I keep digging my memory for moments of you 2009 and before and it’s not a very easy task. And the stuff I remember sometimes are painful. I want to tell you how sorry I am for ever thinking you were silly, or an airhead while the illness was slowly eating out your character. I am sure everyone in the family was sorry as well for any fights or arguments they had with you. Your behaviour was changing and none of us could’ve seen this illness coming and slowly taking away your mind and body.
I am sorry for every time I refused to give you a ride somewhere, gave you a hard time about this or that but most of all, I am so sorry for not spending as much time as I should’ve with you.
I hope that somehow after your illness and before your mind fully went away, you felt all the love and attention I gave to make up for before. In my heart I feel you did.
Rima, be happy to know, not only were you the one who got the highest marks in school or university but be happy to know you were truely the best version of all four of us; your sense of humor, warmness, kindness and generosity can never be matched.
I love you my sister and I wish our conciousness meet again in some future dimension.