Sistah, Sister...

Nihal at 4 years old

Sistah, Sister

Let me tell you a little about my sister.

Today is her 40th birthday.

Today would also have been our father's 67th birthday. Nihal was our father's present on his 27th birthday, which I think is just awesome. I also know this day will suck for her because our father died last year and this is their first shared birthday without him, but I suspect it will always suck; and there's not much anyone can do about that. Alas.

My sister is kind of the most amazing person on the planet; and I know that I'm biased and totally incapable of being objective about this, but the truth is, there is no denying this fact - the fact of her awesomeness, so biased or not - it's the truth!

THE EARLY YEARS

Nihal was born in Nairobi, Kenya on June 1st, 1974. Being born in Kenya, Nihal, even in her earliest years, simply could not understand why it was that she was "Kenyan" and yet "white"; as in, not "black", like others from Kenya? This defied all logic as far as she was concerned, and for years she could be overheard telling people that she was "Kenyan, but a white Kenyan, for some weird reason..."

As a baby, Nihal was HUGE. I mean, like, ENORMOUS. Let me give you some context for scale - I was two years old and probably weighed only a tad more than the 6 lbs. I had weighed at birth. At birth, Nihal popped out at a whopping 8 lbs. 10 oz (or thereabouts); which might explain why her second child, Adam, was born at 9 lbs. 10 oz., but more on that another time. In pictures, if Nihal was positioned in front of me, she might as well have been an only child, is all I'm saying...

Nihal was a TOTAL tomboy. The EXACT opposite of her sister (that would be me), who was a TOTAL non-tomboy in pretty much every sense of the word. While I played with Mom's heels and make-up, Nihal was running after our German Shepherd, Simba, and catching snakes. But I loved her immensely, despite our extreme differences.

Nihal and our cousin, Sarah, the family tomboys

I loved her so much, in fact, that even before she was born, I had already claimed her as "my baby". As a kid, saying the name "Nihal" was a little tough for me, so I called her "Inal" for a long time. Now, I just call her "Nihos" or "Nyhal", but I still love her with the same intensity - and probably even a little bit more.

NIHAL AND THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

My sister loved animals practically from the time she came out of the womb. Unlucky for her, animals were not always so fond of her. Three (or maybe, four) incidents stick out in my mind from our childhood that very positively portray this fact: One, the lioness in Kenya who, upon smelling my baby sister, stalked her for a few minutes - even prompting others to warn my parents that "you might want to move your child away from the cage, that lioness seems mighty focused on her", right before the lioness lunged at my sister quite violently and suddenly. Thank God for the wire-caged fence.

The second incident involved a monkey at the Cairo zoo when Nihal was probably 4 or 5 years old. In Kenya, we were allowed to play with uncaged monkeys if they happened to be pets at someone's home (which was not uncommon). Not so much the norm in Cairo, but Mom didn't know better at the time. Nihal stuck her fingers through the monkey's cage, the monkey was less than pleased, and let's just say there was a lunge, a hard bite and a chomp into a child's little fingers, lots of screaming and a trip to the doctor for rabies shots.

The third, and most traumatic, animal encounter of all was when a neighbor's German Shepherd went a little maniacal at the scent of my 6 year old sister and, being twice her size, lunged for her jugular, missed it by a hair and proceeded to drag her listless body across the street while I screamed hysterically (like an 8-year-old would) and the owner of the dog, inexplicably, pulled at the dog in the opposite direction, essentially ensuring that my sister would be torn to shreds. So, that was fun. And, another trip to the doctor for yet another round of rabies shots.

This is not to mention the one time our family took a trip to Singapore, visited a monkey sanctuary where the monkeys were free roaming and the next thing you know, our entire family - Me, Nihal, Mom and Dad - are being chased through the park (I kid you not) by a family of monkeys; screaming, laughing, yelling and running like hell. Naturally, we blamed it all on Nihal and her damn animal-repellant pheromones.

All I'm saying is, don't take my sister to a zoo or a circus, ok? You'll regret it. I guarantee it.

THE MIDDLE YEARS

My sister and I were great friends from about the ages of 0-11 (2-13 for me)... and then, we parted ways for a spell. Partly because we were SO different, and mostly because I was an asshole teenager. It's the truth. I think there was a good ten years when my sister just thought of me as "that asshole who lives with us", and I don't blame her, but enough about me.

As a teen, my sister was the child any parent would want. She was obedient, yet independent. She was athletic and didn't bother with nuisances like boys and make-up and sneaking cigarettes and alcohol like her asshole sister. No, this was a teenager who got up at the crack of dawn to run track or play basketball. And she was kind of hilarious. Actually, she was VERY hilarious. She made our family laugh, especially during times of extreme tension, like, if I had been caught sneaking out of the house, or caught skipping school or some other rebellious, ridiculous teenage shenanigans for which I was renowned. She served as a much needed buffer and detractor  which was great because it distracted my parents from kicking my ass!

At some point in college, our relationship broke. She found me too reckless, I found her too conservative. We went our separate ways and just couldn't quite "get" each other. Right after college, she got married, and I moved to the US and over the years that I was away, we started to slowly rebuild our relationship - a process that took years, but has ultimately resulted in the most wonderful and fulfilling of friendships and a bond that is truly unbreakable.

THE BOTTOM LINE

I could go on and on and on about my sister and all the stories and all the ways in which she is fabulous, but that would take a couple of years to note, so in short, here is a snippet of the ways in which my sister's awesomeness make her my absolute most favorite and trusted person on the entire planet:

* She is witty and funny in the most unexpected ways and at the most inopportune moments, which makes her all the funnier. Her kids think she's the MOST hilarious person to walk the earth and the sweetest thing is to see them laugh at their Mom because they enjoy her and not because they want to roll their eyes at her. Her 5-year-old, Adam, came to me once while I was living with them, shaking his head and chuckling. I said "what are you laughing at?" and he held up my phone to me to show me a picture of his mother making a ridiculous face and said "look at my mother; she's so crazy and funny!" There is no bigger compliment than that, in my mind...

* She is patient and compassionate to a fault, but she isn't "gooey" or naive in ANY way at all. Sometimes, she's so patient, I want to slap her across the face to make sure she hasn't actually just fallen into some catatonic state. But, that girl has a threshold and you'd better watch out for your life if you cross it because, believe me, it sneaks up on you like a ninja in the night. You might push her limits for hours, days, months even, but when she breaks - holy mother... run. Hide. Play dead. 

* She is there for everybody. I mean, everybody. Sometimes at the expense of her own sanity (see: losing her shit once the patience has run out description above), and sometimes I think she needs to take a little more time for herself, but it's who she is, and those of us who need her - her friends, me, her husband, her children, everyone - are grateful for her patience and her sound wisdom. Frankly, I'd probably be in prison a few times over by now if it hadn't been for my sister's talks and advice. Seriously. I wish I were joking.

* She sends me the funniest and most dead-pan texts and is unfazed by almost anything. A sample below (I wrote her a text to tell her about my gym experience and my plans... she replies with this):

* When our Dad was sick, my sister was raising two kids, living in Georgia, getting her Master's degree in counseling psychology, and doing most of it alone because her husband was working like crazy to finish his medical residency and I, although I was living between my parents' house in North Carolina and my sister's in Georgia at the time, was completely useless having just come out of a horrific marriage/divorce situation and was practically comatose. My sister managed to take on all of this and STILL made time to bake my father his favorite brownies, drive the four and a half hours to North Carolina from Georgia several times a month for the entire year my Dad was sick. Meanwhile, I could barely get out of bed to brush my teeth. She did this without ever once betraying an ounce of exhaustion or exasperation. She managed babysitters, a master's thesis, a full course load and my father's chemo and the aftermath with such grace and patience, it was almost fucking annoying, frankly. I know our Dad got an extreme kick out of that, though... the fact that she would make that drive and bring him home baked goods just because it's what he needed. I asked her once if she ever just doesn't "feel like doing it", and she said, without hesitation, "never. It's Dad. I'd do anything for him. It's not even a question." She is steadfast in her loyalty to her family and has no question in her mind when something needs to be done; it just needs to be. That's all there is to it.

Nihal receiving her MA with her son, Hussein, by her side

* The year of our father's illness was brutal - on all of us. On my mother, naturally, because the love of her life and her companion of 47 years was dying. On me because, well, it's my Dad; the single most significant man in my life - then, now and forever - and he was sick and he was dying and I had just been traumatized by the brutal and unexpected ending of my marriage and had barely had time to heal when my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer, so it was a major double whammy and I was in a coma of sorts. And for Nihal, it was all of that and more. We were each reeling in our way, but she had an army to care for at home, in addition to my mother, my father and me. And she did it all with grace and ease and still made time to be a Mom and a sister and a daughter and a student. 

Nihal The Monkey hanging onto Dad

* Ask any of her friends and they will tell you, Nihal is the best friend a person can have. She is loyal and caring and she gives a hundred per cent of herself without giving it all away (I don't actually know how the fuck she does that and it kind of annoys me to no end, but whatever...) If you need her, she's there for you. And she very, very rarely - if ever - asks for anything in return. She keeps her friends for life and they are fiercely protective of her, as she is of them. As her sister, I can tell you, she is the best friend a sister can have... but even if we weren't sisters, I think she'd still be my best friend, which I think is the greatest thing ever: to know that you not only love your family because they're family, but that you'd actually love them even if you didn't have to!

* She's generous in a way that makes generosity seem like it's running out of style. For 18 months in the past 2 years, I was somewhat adrift in my life. My sister and her husband gave me a home and a place to stay and to live and to heal without even once making me feel unwelcome. I would occasionally say something like "Oh my God, thank you for this..." and Nihal would say, without a moment's hesitation, "are you fucking crazy? It's a no-brainer! You're my sister! You're SUPPOSED to live with me; it's how the world is meant to be", and I am forever grateful to her and her husband for that generosity of spirit. It also gave me the chance to live with my nephews, which is something I cherish beyond anything else. 

And yeah, sure, there are a million ways (okay, maybe not a MILLION), but SOME ways in which she is not perfect... but for the most part, those things are forgivable (like the fact that she has this hilarious tendency to turn every conversation into a "therapy moment" even when all you want to do is just vent - something that makes me laugh but also makes me want to sometimes punch her in the face! I mean, seriously, there are times when I'm not particularly interested in hearing "how does this make you feel, Naila?" and really more interested in hearing her say "wow, what a piece of shit [insert name of villain here] he turned out to be. That really sucks" and that's it, without having to analyze the myriad ways in which I coulda, shoulda, woulda known better had I been more "in tune with your instinct... blah, blah, blah... psychology... Freud... psycho-theory... blah"), but for the most part, she's just a really fun, funny and loving woman and I wouldn't trade her for the world...

Basically, the bottom line is, my sister is a freakin' rock star and I love her to bits and pieces and on her 40th birthday, I think she should know that she is loved, she is appreciated and she is hilarious. Oh, and I think I'll keep her.

(Love you Nihos. Happy Birthday, Patootie :-)