Sisters reunited: emotions spill over
Published: August 17, 2007
MINUTES tick by, a crowd of onlookers forms around them, but still the two slight figures continue to clutch each other with a vice-like grip.
A decade is a long time between hugs and as the tears stream down their carefully made-up faces, sisters Michelle Heuer and Afthalia Hales treasure every second of their embrace.
Michelle couldn’t breathe when she walked into Avalon Airport’s arrivals lounge on Saturday afternoon.
“What do I do? Do I move? Do I go up?” she asked in a panic.
She has dreamt of a reunion since her older sister disappeared in 1997 with two of her three children but the sight of her sibling in the flesh is overwhelming.
But once they finally hugged neither wanted to separate.
“That was intense s–t,” Ms Heuer, 32, said.
“I’ve got to sit down.
“We haven’t slept for days. Neither of us has eaten anything for days,” she said.
“It’s been a long week.”
Ms Hales agreed.
The 44-year-old, who lives in Adelaide, made contact through the missing persons unit in September last year and the pair have been in contact over the phone ever since but her sister still does not know why she left in the first place.
She said now that they had reunited their only concern was looking forward.
“Some things can’t be helped,” Ms Hales explained. “Some things happen in life and there’s nothing you can do about them.”
Her son Joshua, 15, will join her in Geelong today and the pair will spend the week staying with Ms Heuer and her family in Corio.
“There’ll be lots of catching up with the family . . . lots of talking and crying I think,” she said.
“I’ll lose it when we get home,” she said.
“Just wait until she meets the boys,” Ms Heuer laughed, referring to the two nephews that her sister has never met.
And with 10 years of heartache, searching, anger and fear behind her she linked her arm in her sister’s and the pair marched out of the airport to start their future together.
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