Member-only story
The Vanishing
Home and Heart
I had made it through my first night back at home. I was truly facing my challenges, my limitations head on, I was paralyzed sometimes for a brief second I could almost forget that, but it was my reality now. My legs did not move, nothing from the waist down worked as it should, but I had a home and was strong enough to live on my own. My legs did not move, but I was strong in other ways, and if I needed help with anything my family was only a phone call away.
Rachel did not have that, wherever she was at. She didn’t have the ability to call us, and ask for help. If she had that ability, she would have called and asked for our help.
I looked around my house, the house my sister had never seen. Rachel would have a place here, if she came back home, just as Esther did, even time and distance could not tare sisters as close as we were apart. I believed that with all my heart, because I was living it.
Despite the unease I felt at first, it felt good to be at home, to sleep in my own bed. I had slept far better than I had feared I would, in fact I hadn’t slept so well in a long time. The thing I did miss was Ruth’s morning greetings the way she’d bounce into the room in the morning excited for the new day. But her morning wake up call with the help of her Mom certainly eased some of that pain.
