She sat next to me, the mother of the girl. Proud shoulders, happy eyes. The girl just turned 21. She couldn’t even believe herself. “I’m getting old,” said the girl. The mother said, “I can’t believe my baby is 21”. She had a sip of her drink and her chin fell on to her chest, eyes got watery. “We moved my mother into a home recently. She couldn’t be here to celebrate Maddy’s birthday.” She then talked about her sister. Once upon a time, there were “sisters”. Sisters no longer. They lost the middle one when she was only 38. Her eighty-year-old mother had said to her, “I feel sorry for you because you’ll have to live with the pain of losing your sister longer than I will.” Such painful, but wise words I thought.

Mothers, sisters, daughters, will always occupy my existence. I have always felt the absence of a sister whom I’ve never had. I have always lived apart from my mother and not until I had my daughter that I started craving for her. These days, I’m loading Ada with being a sister to me, mother as she grows up and the daughter as is. At times, I feel sorry for her to inherit so much burden on my behalf but most times what I feel is so poetic, I would love it if someone wrote poems for me.