It has been a long time coming...
I love her smile and the dimples on her cheeks when she smiles. I love her laugh, her joy, her hardworking spirit, her tenacity. I am truly loved by God to have been awarded the privilege of being her elder sister.
She is so low maintenance too... she does not ask for much even though I know so well that she deserves all the word can offer. She had to give up so much in our family transition to the new normal but never have I heard a complaint from her. She grieves, though silently and I wish she knew how my heart thinks of her every single day. In the still moments when I stare into the air, I think of her. In moments my pain comes to me, I think of her pain and sacrifice too.
Yo, with family, I could write on and on so I will pick little topics to keep me grounded lol…
So, to make the topic super relevant, I will cut to the chase… I call her the lady with a handkerchief because the 'thausands mirrions' times I have broken down in her presence, she has always had a handkerchief on her. Clean, maybe pressed, but crispy for sure. She is quick to cry too (we all got our fabulous Dad's sensitive genes lol), however, when I'm in tears, not a tear comes to her face. In those moments, she is the strong one. She doesn't utter a word of encouragement either. All she does is just stretch her hand, give me a hankie and once I am all padded up, she just hugs me. This is how I came to realize how powerful non-verbal cues are.
Funny thing is when people cry, I cry with them too… Somehow I take their pain upon myself and no matter how hard I try, the tears just flow. But not with my beloved Faith. She feels my pain, shares in it, just tearlessly :)
My most vivid hankie moments...
…when we were stranded at customs trying to get my sisters gel cushion cleared for tax (story for another day - short version is God really came through), she happened to be with me. Because I am a highly sensitive human, there are moments in the day that made me cry. How the person that had posed as a friend did little to help, to how mean the agent across the counter was. My emotional outlet is always tears… I wailed and groaned in the bathroom and all she did was hand me a hankie… I smiled and counted that as one wonderful blessing…
…when I felt betrayed and hurt by church goers, I couldn't hold it all in… We stopped by a filling station for gas and the tears took a life of their own. The filling station agent was too shook and he wished us a safe journey - I suppose he didn't know how a crying driver would get her family from Nairobi to Nakuru safely lol. Tears can be a vision hazard. I had dumped three wet tissues already. Just as I was reaching for a fourth one, the loving hand I have known for all 21 years she has been alive reached out with a warm clean hankie… again, I smiled and thanked God for her…
…when Church Elders and the Church pastor set up a virtual prayer meeting for my family. I was just too moved and yet again, the emotions flowed so beautifully; rolling down my cheeks as tears. They were tears of joy mixed with a little bit of pain. There is always a pack of dry tissues in my living room… I was on my third when yet again that familiar hand handed me a hankie… I tried declining it but in the end, two of us used the hankie. We, the elder sisters, used the hankie and she, the youngest of us, remained wonderfully calm and smiled.
I have no idea how she always has a hankie at hand, but it comes in handy :). One beautiful lesson I draw from all this is just how GOD loves us. All GOD wants is to wipe away our tears. HE is moved by our pain, sometimes even weeps with us but HIS act of love is just stretching out a loving hand with a hankie in it. Not so we could stop crying, but so we could soak all those tears in it, so we could share all the pain we feel with HIM. God has loved me too much, overwhelmingly even, through my sister. Every time that hankie comes through, I feel GOD.
Darling Faith, I see and feel God in you. Thank you for passing on HIS love message to me. I love you impossibly much.