Sisters

My dad recently sent me an email saying, "Justine says Hi Ate I miss you, I love you and I want you to stay here forever.  I don't want you to go away....come here soon....."

One of the hardest parts about being away from home is being away from my 6 year old sister, Justine (My brother Aidan too, but that's for another post). She is joy - pure joy in tiny little human being form. And I'm not just saying this because she's my sister, she's got plenty of glowing reviews from everyone she meets.

Her forte is boy advice: "The trick to make a boy like you is buying him lots of toys. If he doesn't like toys, then you can buy him t-shirts." Truer words have never been spoken.

I wrote this a long time ago:

Justine

My entire family knew before I did—aunts, grandparents, second cousins twice removed. And me, my dad’s only daughter, the one that lived with him for four years after the divorce, was the last to know.

The baby was due in a month.

More changes were to come. My home - the one I happily called my own when I was eight, where I played dress-up and danced bare feet across my back yard - was sold to a shady looking business man who wanted all of our curtains for free.

And then she came: my half sister, swaddled in cloth, staring back at me with her alien eyes.


It was real now; she was here, like a porcelain doll in flesh and bone. Tiny hands held my fingers with such certainty, the newborn with an iron grip.

I cradled and rocked her back and forth; I told her stories and sang her songs. Justine, with coal black hair and rainbows in her eyes, looked mischievous when she smiled. Justine, who smelled like peaches and jellybeans, never ate anything green. Justine, my sister, needed me like I needed her.

She was a sweetheart, a terror; the little girl with hair that fell in her face, who followed me around like a shadow during all my visits home. She drew landscapes on paper and painted portraits on carpets and on the walls.

Justine dressed herself in printed tights and frilly skirts, hid nail polish and lip-gloss in her pink backpack, and cut her own hair with safety scissors under the dining room table.


When an ex-boyfriend broke my heart, her tiny hands wiped the tears from my eyes; and when she scraped her knee on the sidewalk, I wiped hers.

It was true love with her, the girl who wanted to be exactly like me in every way - even when I didn’t want to be like me at all.

At 23, I was to start anew. The airport was my first step towards a new life in London, a fresh start in fashion journalism, a struggle to be independent. I was burdened with two suitcases and a pile of student loans; uncertainty and apprehension; hesitation and excitement. Big leaps reap bigger rewards.

Only I was too scared to jump.

I felt the tears well up in my eyes, saying ‘So long,’ to my best friends, ‘Arrivederci,’ to my family, ‘See you soon,’ to a city I knew so well. And my sister, my darling sister, with all her three-and-a-half year old wisdom, hugged me close and told me she’d miss me.

Justine, who married princes in tablecloth gowns, feasted on plastic French fries and fake ice cream. Justine, who knew the words to all my favourite songs, was the hardest one to leave.

“Here,” she handed me her prized possession, a small pink bear. It was her lifetime companion, a confidante of cotton stuffing and fake fur. I smiled but declined.

“She’ll take care of you,” she said.

With wide-eyes and hands covered in marker, Justine loved me more than her very favourite toy. She was my half sister, my hero in pink overalls. But half means never complete: half empty, half hearted, half finished. Half full.

Save for Justine; that was never her. She’s my sister--entirely whole.


I'll leave you with some photos and a funny little video:




























If you don't read any of this, fair enough, but you won't regret watching this video:

Justine from mari on Vimeo.