Some things in life arrive unexpectedly, and when they do, you realize you couldn’t imagine life without them. That was the case with my youngest sister. We never planned to have another child, but when she was born she filled our home with sunshine and laughter and quickly became indispensable to all of us.
I was in high school when my mother was pregnant. At the time I was completely oblivious to what a growing belly meant—I honestly thought she had just put on weight. A classmate visited and, spotting my mother’s protruding stomach as she lay on the couch, asked, “Is your mom pregnant?”
“No, she is just getting fat!” I answered, stunned that anyone would think my mother was expecting. The idea of my mother having another child felt impossible: my siblings and I were already much older than the typical age for a mother still having children.
My younger brother felt the same way. When he noticed Mom’s belly growing, he called her into his room and said, “Mommy, I hope you are not pregnant. Don’t disgrace us, oh.”
Both of us reasoned that our mother had passed the age of childbearing because the people we knew who were having babies were much younger women.
Sometime after my friend’s observation—and after I had dismissed it—my father came to visit me at the boarding school where I was studying. In Cameroon, boarding schools for secondary and high school students are common, and visitors are a welcome treat. I lit up when I saw him. He was unusually cheerful and announced that my mother had given birth to a baby girl.
It turned out my friend had been right all along. I was ecstatic. I even offered to name the baby and chose “Pearly,” a name close in meaning to Precious, which suits her perfectly.
Our unexpected sister grew quickly in wisdom, stature, and charm. She became everyone’s favorite and the light of our home, always saying and doing things that made us laugh.
Pearly would ask me to wait for her so she could have one last turn on the playground slide at school before we went home. As a child she loved to imitate the way our father sounded when he ate meat, and she did it in the most hilarious way. Once, when an adult jokingly called a little girl his wife, Pearly shot back, “No, she cannot be your wife! You are a man and she is a girl!”
She was funny in every sense of the word and collected many childhood nicknames—Pearly Nash, Abobo, Jerry the Jerry, Mpeke—each one added out of affection. She was so remarkable that new nicknames kept coming.
Now she is a teenager and still brings joy and laughter to our lives. My parents, my siblings, and I truly cannot imagine life without her.
I love you, Pearly Nash, my sweet little sister.