COVID sucks!
I have said for a year and a half now that I don’t really miss people. “This Covid separation is doable,” I say often. “There is Zoom, and Skype, and FaceTime. I’m good! What are people complaining about?!,” I say. But darn it, I miss my sister! For more than two years now, I have walked around broken, incomplete, and empty because there is no prospect of seeing her yet.
I
miss my sister in an organic, visceral way, in the sense of her person,
with her nerves, and flesh, and sinews.
I miss our chats in person, over a glass of
wine (her), bottle of beer (me), a bowl of chips or sunflower seeds. I miss her
smell and her smile, her jokes and sass …Her picking on her children and making
them laugh. Her children are my only competition at adoring her.
I miss her eye-rolls when I say something
too serious and too worrisome. I miss her cooking and her quirkiness when she
moves about the room. Her clumsiness when she knocks glasses full of liquid or plates
full of food off the table and then shrugs it off with a laugh and her head
thrown back … “It’s oohhh kaayyyy,” she pep-talks herself cracking up.
I miss our walks, as no one ever walks like
her: this girl does not walk. She runs, rather. She fidgets. She hurries and jumps.
She makes your ankles snap and your belly fat jiggle and she does not look
behind, so you better keep up!
I miss her hugs – they are the best! I
relive my entire life when she hugs me – I see us, children, short, and bony,
climbing mountains, feeding farm animals or cats, chasing dogs and making hay
or gathering mushrooms and wild berries. Falling asleep in the same bed, so
exhausted, we don’t finish our sentences. I miss the sleepovers …
I miss her squeezing a cat or some creature
and making funny voices, as if she speaks to babies. I miss her outpouring of
love on every thing and every one … The enormous display of affection she has
for everyone she loves – human or beast!
I miss us painting our nails together and her
restlessness, then giggles when she “messes up another nail” because the woman
can’t sit still. Not even for a minute.
I miss looking into her deep, coal-black
eyes – you can drown in those eyes, lost to the world forever. Those eyes tell
my life story, just like her hugs …
I miss us watching Seinfeld on a loop and
her laughter, out of control, rich, healthy, contagious. At every scene. Her
reciting the lines …
We do FaceTime and Skype, but none of these
are possible through those. None of the palpable, blood vessel against blood
vessel, smell wrapped into smell, hand touch against skin real-ness –
none of these are possible with FaceTime and Skype …
I miss her so much it hurts! It makes me gag
and choke up, hopeless!
Two days before her birthday (yesterday),
her country (Canada) opened their borders to Americans. This was the best present
possible on her birthday for me. America is still not allowing
Canadians into our country … I dream of a day, soon, before I whither away with
longing, when we can be together again, even if it is for just 24 hours.
Till we make it to that day (and we will. I
am sure of it!), happy birthday, sweet child! Happy birthday, my soulmate … I’ll
fall asleep tonight with nothing but a head full of memories of times gone by
and wishful longing for more, better times to come – soon. Till then, thank you
for having shared your whole life with me. You are the biggest part of my life.
You hold all the secrets and all the unsaids … I sometimes fail to know where
you end and I begin …
I love you …
No comments:
Post a Comment