I Just Miss Her

This is me and my sweet sister in San Francisco on vacation last year.

In January, my sister and her husband moved to Ghana. He is an anthropological film maker who is working there, and she is a school teacher and counselor to children there. I was 18 weeks pregnant when she left, so the shit had not officially hit the fan yet in my pregnancy. In the weeks that followed, there was bleeding, then a car accident, then pre-eclampsia and then I had a nasty lupus flare -- more on that later. I was hospitalized twice, the last time for two weeks until they induced me at 36 weeks. During this time, even though my sister was a zillion miles away, we managed to communicate by any means possible. We would e-mail, text message and every once in awhile she would call me. I always loved saying hello and hearing a delay in a response because I knew it was her calling from a world away. There were times when I would have a doctor's appointment, good or bad, and the only person I really wanted to talk to was her. She delighted in me telling her about my pregnancy and loved hearing whether we'd heard the heartbeat or how much the baby weighed now when they measured her on ultrasound. When I told her I was scared or that I didn't think I would make it through the stress of this pregnancy, she would simply, say "Kerry, I can't imagine what you're going through." She never tried to one up me or say, "Well, my friend who was pregnant this one time, blah, blah, blah." She just listened.

With the help of modern technology, she knew within minutes of Claire's birth, and I was even able to send her a picture via text message. I felt like she was with me. Until now, I have never really known what it felt like to really, truly miss someone. I never knew it could physically hurt to miss a person. Well, it does. As much as I know it's a good thing for her to be with her husband in Ghana, and as much as I know the school children she is teaching need her more than I do, I am just selfish enough to really wish she'd show up on my doorstep tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon would be fine, too. I just miss her.