Little Sister

My friendship with Eslem has been special right from the start. Feeling bored as an only child, I begged my mother for a little brother. When I was eight years old, my mother told me she was pregnant. I asked her every single day what the gender of the baby was going to be. Finally she told me that the doctors had an inkling. It was probably going to be a girl. I was mortified. I wanted a brother, not a barbie-playing, make-up wearing annoying little thing running about the house. Several months later, my grandmother woke me up to tell me the baby was born. At the hospital I saw the most amazing tiny thing that my mother introduced as ‘YOUR sister’. In that moment, nothing mattered except the fact that she was my sister. I would be her friend no matter what.  

Years later. I see my friend er is not able to express herself  and relying on others such as myself to be the ‘translator’. She expresses herself with art, with slight movements of her hands and with the most subtle of facial expressions. I can read it, I can understand it, much better than anybody else. A simple look and I know exactly what she wants to say.

And that’s the problem. Nobody else can. Little Sister is Eslem’s chance to show people who he she is and what she has to give to the world. I am lucky enough to hear her voice and I know this little girl is special. It’s everybody else’s turn to see it now.