My best friend, my parallel traveller
Today is one year since my baby sister died.She was not a baby when she died, she was a 25-year-old young woman, who had just begun to spread her wings. Anyone who has experienced unexpected loss, will understand our agony of waking up every morning to the reality that the person without whom you couldn’t imagine life, is actually gone.It is easy to despair at moments like this, knowing that your sister, who was supposed to be your parallel traveller in life has departed suddenly, with no warning whatsoever.
When Andrea passed away I was miles away from everything and everyone close to me. Just a few minutes before the call from my parents I was trying to get through to Andrea to settle down to our regular Saturday evening chat when she would give me updates on her work, studies, and the well-being of our parents. Since we were two months away from my wedding, we had been in touch almost daily, as she, in her capacity as bridesmaid was attending to more than her share of the preparations. This is what I miss the most now. The ability to sit down with her, just updating each other about the latest developments in life.
I proudly reflect sometimes on how we, two sisters, influenced each other in venturing into academic and professional territories that very few expected us to. Nangi graduated from the University of Moratuwa with a Diploma in Textile Engineering and had completed one year at MAS Holdings as an Executive Merchandiser. But what I valued the most in her was her ability to resist the profit-oriented ambition and boastful upward mobility common in the corporate sector, and to retain her sense of humility and human empathy. I realized later, that unbeknown to me, she was reading book after book from my collection;once going so far as to sneak a copy of Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy to one of her friends who argued with her about the right to love, regardless of sexual orientation. This same friend told me after her passing that she compelled her friends to constantly give the benefit of the doubt to human and cultural experiences that might seem “different” from our own. I was not surprised to hear this. Her maturity and sense of judgement often made me reflect on the ideas and experience she had to offer in her short life with immense sisterly pride.
My earliest memory of nangi is the day she was born, standing in-between my aunt and my cousin peering at her fresh pinkness with mild interest, neither excited nor disappointed. Little did I know that her presence was going to shape my personality, my routines, my habits by simply requiring me to be akki: it still feels strange to no longer hear this appellation from her. I keep replaying memories of a 4-year-old Andrea, in a Velona nighty, arms swinging, marching into our parents’ room to be dressed by my father for nursery school, and then excitedly trotting down our grandparents’ garden to get into “akki’s school van”, as my grandparents watched proudly.Each time I walk home through our childhood garden I see the countless hours spent at fantasy play in stories composed and enacted with Yasassri, our mutual best friend.
In our adult years,taking after our mother, nangi and I shared a love for food, being adventurous in the kitchen which produced her signature apple crumble and rhubarb cake. As I leaf through my grandmother’s handwritten recipe book I realize now that I have one more legacy to add to the family recipes, that of a palate that experienced life for only 25 years.
As I reflect on these memories I cannot help but think that it is now my duty to make sure that she lives on, not only in those who knew and loved her, but also in posterity those who would never meet her in person. One of Andrea’s friends talks to me sometimes, simply to listen to my voice, saying she finds comfort in its similarity in tone and cadence to hers. I realize that I must carry her voice, her legacy within me, so that people would remember the bubbly, cheerful, and gentle strength of the younger sister, as they look at the more serious elder sister.
When I first left our home in Kandy for work in Colombo, Andrea simply said to me,“Akki I miss you”. To you Andrea, all I can say today are the same words: “Nangi I miss you”. As painful as it is to not have your physical presence through the rest of my life, I want this pain to stay with me, for it is a reminder that I love you, and love you I will until my own last breath.
I dedicate this appreciation to your friends, Gajana, Nuzha, Madushan, and Manjula, who with you, have left an irreplaceable void in us all.
Crystal Baines