I Felt Nowhere

In and Out of Africa: Part 1

King protea and sunflowers photographed on the windy streets of Cape Town’s Kalk Bay.

My mother’s neighbor is calling. My two kids and I just checked into our hotel in South Africa after a 15-hour flight. I miss the call but text her, just in case it’s important.

“Your mother called that your sister was having seizures,” she texts back. “I’m out of town. I told her to call 911.”

I call my brother in Boston. Did he know?

“What?” he says.

He’s a firefighter and calmer than me. And much closer to New York, where my mother and my sister live.

My sister has epilepsy, and has survived cancer three times. Her health is a constant worry. She’s been holding steady, thanks to the watchful eye of my mom, whom she lives with.

Meanwhile, I’m on a trip of a lifetime in Africa. Twenty years ago, when I was the editor in chief of National Geographic Kids, I came to Grootbos Private Nature Preserve with our contest winners and The Today Show. My own children were one and three years old. I remember feeling torn about leaving them behind.

I vowed to one day bring them back there.

Here.

There’s another reason for visiting this continent. Their father passed away 10 years ago, when our kids were nine and eleven. Keith was born in the Congo, and lived there until he was five. The black and white photo of him with his pet elephant captivated our kids. So this is a bittersweet bucket list destination.

And then we arrive to learn my sister is on a ventilator in the ICU. All I know is that they are testing for an infection.

There’s a six-hour time difference and I’m wandering around the Easter Egg neighborhood of Bo-Kaap like a zombie.

In the middle of the night, my brother forwards my mother’s voicemail. Jenn’s blood pressure is concerningly low.

The following morning at breakfast we’re having flat whites, omelettes made to order and almond croissants. The family next to us is planning to see the penguins. I’m refreshing my phone.

Was Jennifer alive or dead, I wonder?

Not for the first time. My sister first got cancer when she was in third grade (I was in fifth). The doctors said that she would not survive the trial drug tamoxifen, but they would learn from the experiment. I had never heard my father cry before. He was in the kitchen, the curly green wire tethering him to the kitchen wall phone. I was straining on the stair landing, out of sight, wondering what to do.

Which was, and still is, nothing.

His best friend Larry, a proctologist, had to come over and help him sign the releases.

She was in and out of hospitals growing up, sometimes in the ICU for months at a time, hovering on the edge. Meanwhile, we waited. That was half a century before cellphones and instant news.

The following morning, still no update.

We drive over two hours along the southern coast on the whale route to De Kelders. We hike into the Klipgat Caves where archaeologists found stone tools from people who lived 80,000 years ago and I check my phone and talk to a nice family from Nova Scotia and check my phone. But still no news.

At 6:00 pm I reach my aunt who informs me that the next step is a spinal tap.

Meanwhile, our two-bedroom suite is Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with a private hot tub on a deck with a twisty Milkwood tree growing right through the floorboards. Otherworldly cloud banks nestle into the lush fynbos, the Afrikaans word for fine bush. Through the gray and green stripes a blood-red setting sun pops through like a punctuation.

“You gotta see this!” calls my son Chase, leaning over the deck with his iPhone. My daughter bolts out with hers.

Yes, this.

I watch them.

Just as quickly I remember. How could I be so lucky and my sister so desperately not? I want to go home. But what would that accomplish? It wouldn’t help my intubated sister. It certainly wouldn’t help my two kids, who already lost a parent.

My place is here.

I feel nowhere.

Fifty years later, I’m still straining on that landing.

I don’t know how to hold joy without betraying grief. I don’t know how to enjoy what I have when someone I love is suffering. Given a room of happy people and one unhappy one, I will ferret out that one.

So, I write. The page blots up the snarl of feelings.

Part 2 of 2 runs Friday.

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