Today would have been her birthday. She would have been sixteen years old. She would have been getting her license and planning her sweet sixteen birthday party. The world should have been hers.
Instead, my sister is lying in a box in the ground.
My earliest memory is from the day she was born. I was a happy, excited little three-year-old girl who couldn’t wait to meet this new baby I’d heard so much about. I walked into the room proudly wearing my “I’m a big sister” T-shirt and expected everyone to focus on me like I had always been used to. I stopped suddenly when I saw the tiny little pink bundle in my mother’s arms. That bundle was my sister. That bundle changed my life.
She was there for all of the big moments of my life. She couldn’t wait to hear all about school when I got home from my first day of kindergarten. In her two-year-old mind school sounded like an awesome adventure. She was the same for each new grade; I was her big sister, and she wanted to know everything I did so she could be just like me.
She was so jealous when I went to my first school dance. I thought I was so cool at the mature age of twelve getting all dressed up to go dance with the acne-ridden boy I called my date. I was horrified when I walked downstairs and found an excited little girl in a princess dress-up gown expecting to go with me. I harshly told her she was way too little to go somewhere fun with the cool middle schoolers and laughed as she ran upstairs. I found her later that night crying in her bed. She had only wanted to be like me, but I hadn’t been worth imitating.
When I first got my driver’s license, I took her out for ice cream – just the two of us. She seemed so proud that I was including her in my special day. We ran into some of her junior high friends, and you could feel their jealousy as they realized she was out with no parents. She was on top of the world, and when I saw her grin, so was I.
It seems like any time you feel that things couldn’t get any better your world is going to come crashing around you. That night was no exception. On our way home from the ice cream parlor, a drunk driver swerved from the other lane. His car hit mine, and my car hit a tree. I reached over to try to protected her as she screamed my name. It was the last word she ever spoke.
Today, at the young age of nineteen, my husband and I welcomed our first daughter into the world. We named her after my sister. It only seemed right. Here is a new tiny little pink bundle. Here is a little girl who will want to be just like me. This time, I won’t let her down.
