Baby Sister

I love you my baby sister.

I had a brother. I have a sister. I had a baby sister. Funny how we feel the need to put everything into past and present tenses. The then, the now, the beginning, the end, the in-between.

I remember the day our mom and dad brought you home, our tiny new baby sister. The love I immediately felt for you was profound and a little overwhelming, and that love has never wavered over a lifetime. You will always be baby sister to me. Thank you for not rolling your eyes when I never stopped referring to you that way. At least thank you for not letting me see you do that.

We were often a family that found it difficult to put deep feelings into words, so I didn’t say it often enough to you, but I hope you felt it always. I regret that we weren’t as close as we might have wanted to be, separated first by years – the age gap between a nineteen year old and a ten year old seems huge and insurmountable. Then we were separated by distance and by the different directions we took in life and finally by circumstances. Through everything though we were bonded by family ties and an unbreakable sisterly connection.

Writing this is hard, but if you taught me anything in the past several years, it’s that when things are hard you hunker down, you suck it up (both expressions that you likely never would have used) but however you might have phrased it, you somehow knew how to dig deep and find the strength to do the hard stuff. You made hard choices, you stood by your convictions, you were optimistic and you never gave up. You told us the hard stories about your experiences and shared your best memories and I will forever cherish the communication we had. I will miss that.

I know we didn’t always agree on things, but how boring would life be if we never had passionate discussions and questions and different points of view. You were true to who you were and lived the way you wanted to. I’m glad you were loved and found happiness. It’s all we wish for anyone.

We always think we have time enough to accomplish all the things we plan and say all the things we need to say until suddenly we don’t. I truly believe you have found your peace now and are off on your next great adventure and that there is no real ending as long as there are people who remember you and will never stop loving you.

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning, in an ever spinning reel…..

I love you my baby sister. I loved you then, I love you now, I will love you forever.