My Sister Disappeared

My little sister Revelle Balmain disappeared in 1994. There are a number of years difference between us, so when I was leaving home, Revelle was still only a baby. We also had a baby brother Matthew, who was three years younger than Revelle.

My strongest memories of Revelle are of her dancing. She always danced, taking classes in classical, tap and jazz, and I would spend every Saturday with her at the studio. A lot of her time was spent in competitions and attending end-of-year dance concerts with her family watching. Unlike me, she knew exactly what she wanted to do and approached it with a passion; she was a performer and knew how to enchant the audience.

Her dream was to dance all over the world. From the beginning, she was professional and it was apparent that this was going to be her career. Our mother was a professional dancer, and Revelle wanted to follow in her footsteps. She had been classically trained, and even when her career as a dancer would come to an end, she knew she could continue her love of the art in teaching dance.

Birthdays and Christmases were always spent together, and I would come home most weekends to have Sunday lunch. She would never stop talking; she always had something to say. We would go and sit in her bedroom, which was totally pink with lots of fluffy toys who were all named. There, we would talk about everything and anything. She was a bit sneaky as well. She used to hide lollies in her bedroom, well away from parental eyes.

At home she was like any other teenager; she had a mind of her own.