Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.
- Benjamin Disraeli
I wrapped the fragile gift in tissue paper and placed it in the glove compartment of the van as I continued to prepare for the journey that lay ahead. This journey would lead me to Oregon, where I would visit my sister.
I had received my mom’s phone call two days prior, her words imbedded in my memory. “Your sister… miscarriage … lost the baby … I don’t know why.” At that moment, I felt a familiar stab of pain in my chest. The baby that my sister had hoped for, prayed for and endured months of morning sickness for, was gone. She would have been my sister’s third child, a baby girl named Mary.
As I tearfully relayed the news to my husband, our four-year-old daughter looked on in concern and confusion before asking, “Mommy, did her baby go to heaven, like your baby?”
I looked into her innocent brown eyes and responded, “Yes, her baby went to heaven with my baby, your big sister, Kaileen.”
Your big sister, Kaileen. My Kaileen. It sounds so strange to say those words, as I never got to meet my Kaileen. She was our baby who was too ill to have been born. She came into my life along with all of the joy of impending motherhood, and then left when I was nearly five months pregnant. How many times have I wished that I could have heard her laugh or held her in my arms? How many years would pass before I would stop wondering why I could not save her, and why she had the strength to say good-bye when I still could not?
I cried silently as I thought of the despair of not seeing my child’s heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor, and the silence of the doctor as she tried to find a way to tell me the terrible news. I wished that I could take away my sister’s pain, but how was that possible when I had yet to take away my own?
As we drove along the interstate, I reminisced about growing up with my sister, who is five years younger than me. From the moment our parents brought her home from the hospital, she was always there for me, even during those years when I desperately wanted my independence. She was the child who couldn’t keep a secret, the one who was constantly “it” at hide-and-seek because she couldn’t stop giggling from her hiding place. I spent years evading her with my friends as she persistently followed us, wanting to be included. Furthermore, my sister brought the art of “tattletaling” to unprecedented levels, and I was often on the receiving end of her craft.
My sister was also the one I could always count on to perform in the many concerts and plays I directed in the basement of our home. She showed up for rehearsals, rain or shine, and always helped make tickets and programs for our parents, who were our only audience. She never missed a meeting for the “top secret” clubs that I organized, and was usually the only member who remembered the supersecret passwords I established to enter the clubhouse, aka my bedroom.
My sister was the one I called when the boy I had a crush on finally asked me out. She was the one who went out for cheeseburgers with me because she and I both knew I’d be too nervous to eat with my date. She was the one who stood up as maid of honor in my wedding, and I was the eight months’ pregnant matron of honor at hers, four years later.
She is the one I talk to daily about temper tantrums, diaper rash and separation anxiety. My sister listens when I’ve tried everything, yet just can’t get my kids to eat their vegetables. She is the person who consoled me over the telephone as I sat next to a door listening to my children cry themselves to sleep. She is the one I depend on to share the ups and downs of motherhood with.
As I arrived at my sister’s house, I didn’t know what I would say or how I would comfort her. Although we had both lost daughters at similar stages in our pregnancies, our experiences were unique. Nothing I could say would take away the pain she felt, just as nothing had taken away my pain six years earlier.
I walked over to the couch where she sat, pale and heartbroken. I handed her the gift and hoped she would understand what it meant to me - and how much she meant to me. She opened the tissue paper and looked at what I had given her: a pink baby bootie held on a string.
“I bought this pair of pink baby booties after I lost Kaileen. I hang one on my Christmas tree every year in memory of her. I thought you should have the other one for Mary,” I explained.
As my sister looked at the ornament, and then at me, she said, “Thank you so much. Kaileen has a cousin in heaven with her now.”
“Yes she does. She has Mary... your Mary,” I answered.
We sat quietly, though not in silence, as our four children ran from one end of her living room to the other, screaming as they played. I remembered the two of us running through the living room of our parents’ house many years before, and at that moment, I knew. I knew that someday my sister would smile again, laugh again and have hope again. As I sat there watching her hold that delicate pink ornament, I knew we would all be okay. After all, we not only have one angel in heaven watching over us; now we have two.
- Melissa M. Blanco