Waiting for baby

Waiting is a peculiar agony; my younger sister could not stand the implicit pressure of a family in waiting for her baby, so much so that she ceased to answer the phone and holed up with her husband - also a younger child.

Two younger children on the defensive against a family that almost crushed them; my sister, on escaping the nest, discovered that her tyrannical older sisters were not her life-blood, or her guardian angels, but fragile creatures sucking the air out of her sturdier body. Now we think of this 30 year old baby sister and her unjust suffering; the uselessness and unwantedness of our greater years and faux-wisdom is slightly shameful.

I misplaced my phone that rings with regularity: it's my older sister - the already a mother of Safiya; my mother; my father - "Any news", "No", "Any news?", "No".

Why do I think of tragedy and grief? What a cowardly catholic at heart I am, that I believe in original sin and punishment and hardly dare give nature its due.

Come on baby. When you're ready

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