This is a hard one to get out, has very little to do with babies, and is about as personally revealing as I get.
My sister came to visit us for a reason. The idea for this week came as a result of hearing for months on end how lonely she has been in her small appartment in small-town Wingham, with no one to talk to save her little dog. The blunt reason for this loneliness is that my sister has a disability that she has had from birth. As a result of a stroke during labour, she has partial paralysis on one side of her body, and impaired cognitive abilities. That's the diplomatic way of writing it.
The reality of my sister's life is very different from most of us. She lives on her own, but government assistance is not exactly a large lump of money, and so she usually finds a dingy apartment with questionable neighbours and thin walls. She doesn't have a driver's license, and in the rural area where she lives, there isn't much in the way of social programs for her to get out and involved in the community. A local grocery store hires her for 4 hours a week on Thursdays, but other than that, her time is her own. She tries to make friends, but finds people "awkward" and "rude". I can't be mad at people for this, because sometimes she can be hard to deal with, what with the misunderstanding what I am trying to say, and being easily offended, but if anyone were to take the time to get to know her, they would find a heart of gold and a generous soul.
She is 38. All she wants is a boyfriend, and a family. As far as I know, she's never had a boyfriend, ever.
I live in a very different world, and most of the time I don't see her. She calls me more often than I call her, but for some reason, this doesn't make me feel guilty enough to change. I think it has something to do with how difficult the conversations can be. She is very lonely and very confused as to why she has no one, and what do I say to that? It will get better? In my heart of hearts, I don't think it will. It is hard to hear the pain in her voice, and have nothing of substance to say to make it go away. I can't make her life better, and I'm not very good at making her feel better either.
This is the longest stretch in 6 years that we have spent together, and it has been really hard. Taz is awe inspiring in the way he just gets in there, and exercises the most beautiful patience and compassion I have ever seen. Seriously, that man needs to be a social worker or something. He has so much potential to relate to people! When I am getting frazzled and snappish with her at the end of the day, he steps in and takes over the conversation, and I disappear into my room to recover myself and mull over how unfair the world can be.
Conversations of pregnancy have become strange for me too. Every time we discuss anything to do with Amelia, she gets a wistful expression and says something like "I raised you. I never thought you would have a baby before me." or, "I would give anything in the world to trade places with you." I know she would, but there's a whole world of discrimination preventing that. Men don't look twice at her. She's very shy and timid when meeting strangers (probably more the result of 38 years of bullying than her disability). More than one person has told her she shouldn't have children. Who knows what the medical profession would say to her if she did manage to get pregnant? Who knows what well-meaning child welfare program would get involved?
Last night she was crying on my shoulder, saying she was just so "confused" about why just this once, she couldn't "get her way". And there was absolutely nothing I could say or do to make that better. There isn't a medication for loneliness, and there is no cure for social stigmatisation.
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