Journey to India

Our adopted sister and aunt to our kids, Sarah Ebell, died on Monday, November 27th, accidentally. It's really hard to be in India, when all my community back home is hurting and grieving. They are arranging her memorial, and I wish I were there. But it is too costly and impractical, and I know that Sarah would understand why I am not going back to Canada ahead of time.

 

===========================

 

Sarah took me for granted, and I took her for granted. She was always there when needed, disappearing sometimes for a few days, at most a week, and then reappearing unannounced for a cup of coffee. That was our ritual. She would drop by on her way to or from a landscaping job, and I would stop what I was doing to make a cup of something. She liked my coffee, fresh ground and brewed, and we would chat and gossip, discussing anything from the price of computers to human relations and her school courses. The kids didn't bat an eyelid when they woke up to find her in the kitchen, not finding it any more necessary to say good morning to her than to me. Sarah stayed for dinner and though she didn't like doing dishes, she was always ready to build a fence or deck. She was ready to lend Kian a hand with his catapult building and happy to discuss the latest Harry Potter book with Bashu.  When Sarah was stuck, she called us, and when we were stuck, we called her.

 

Once when Zaman was eight or so, and Sarah had tucked him into bed, I went in to say goodnight. Zaman said to me "Ma, you know, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but.... " and I said please go ahead and tell me, he continued "well, Sarah is like a mother, I feel as if she is like a mother". He didn't want me to see her as competition, but he wanted to express that she had that feeling about her, for him. Sarah didn't mother him per se, in a clichéd way, but simply had been there for him for so long, so often, that it just felt like a mother.

 

Sarah was like a sister. I don't mean that in a sort of mushy way. In fact, like any biological sister, she annoyed me. And I annoyed her. We let each other know. And like sisters, it didn't stop us from getting together all over again. When I was down and out about something she obliged by listening to me. And vice versa.

 

I am going to miss the little annoying things that were part of my landscape at home. Her shoes, like my children's, would be left at the door and invariably I tripped over them. Sarah had a funny habit of not closing the door when she left. Winter of summer, I would find that door open, letting out the heat or letting in the mosquitoes. I would close it and consider Sarah incorrigible. I won't hear "hello, hello" through the house anymore, from the doorway as Sarah lets herself in. I always thought Sarah would be there. I always thought that we would grow old together and pick on each other, and fuss over the kids, oohing and ahhing over their achievements, and get together for yet one more family dinner, one more big laugh, with a glass of red wine, more laughs and general commentaries about the absurdness of life, complete with its terrible pain and relentless beauty. I always thought we would get to the bottom of the mystery of the meaning of life, together, cackling and crying, all at the same time.

 

And maybe we did.