To my little sister,
My little sister game has been off lately. Well, not lately. It's been a while. I think maybe what I'm saying sounds familiar to you, but that, like everything that happens or doesn't happen between us, we understand each other. You don't make me feel guilty about the texts that go unreturned or the phone calls that find me distracted on the other end of the line as I peel the yogurt from my son's hair. Our conversations now seem snatched up by the moments we can carve out of our busy lives, but I'm painfully aware that they're more on my timeline than yours. I'm painfully aware that we're gone and you're the only one, right now, anchoring me to our sisterhood.
So I wanted to say some of the things I never seem to have time to tell you.
I missed you today.
We live half a world and time zones apart, with very different lives. Here I am, living my domestic fantasy with two kids and a husband. You, living the exciting big-city life of a career woman with so many things and so many accomplishments. Even if we lived each other's lives, I suspect our paths rarely cross; they're so divergent.
But still, I missed you today.
Yesterday I called my oldest daughter by your name. This happens more often than you might imagine. She reminds me of you, with her happy-go-lucky nature, her fearlessness, her openness, her willpower, and her high-voltage laughter. Her ability to delight and infuriate me to an unmatched degree. And in other ways too: I feel toward her the protectiveness I didn't even realize I've spent my entire life feeling toward you. It's magnified now that I'm her actual protector instead of our own mother, but the feeling isn't new to me, and that's because of you.
How I fell in love with you, my little sister. Not just for our childhood, but also for our young adulthood. I took you with me, gave you my ID, and did my best to cover for you when you did something naughty. As children, I loved how easy it was to boss people around, and later felt lucky to have a built-in last call, a go-to person, and a wingwoman.
The big sister standard was set very high; you loved me more than anyone in the world. I felt it, I saw it, I knew it, and I don't think you realize how much that simple fact has shaped me. How strange it is that you have to be absent from your life while I shift my attentions to two little boys who are so much like us… I won't feel sorry for my absence, but I hope you know I feel it too.
I hope you know I missed you today.
As I watch my two sons/brothers grow up together, I understand what we had and have even more than before. No matter how much space there is between us in our lives, and no matter how many phone calls we miss, your existence has made me who I am. Our union is not and has never been a choice—it's inevitable, a law of nature. Without you, I would be a yin without a yang, a left without a right, a little girl without her sister.
This weekend, when I woke up to the news of yet another incomprehensible act of cowardice and barbarity committed in London, my heart leaped into my throat, and I reached for my phone before my eyes were even open. Of course, I knew the chances of you being caught in the attack were low, but even the thought of such violence perpetrated in a nearby neighborhood made my stomach freeze. It's there, and nothing will ever change that.
So, my dear sister—these are the things I never seem to have time to tell you. Thank you for everything we've had together and for all the things we'll have in the future when our paths come closer again, as I have no doubt they will. Thank you for loving my two little ones as fiercely as only you know how, even though you have them so far away, never making me feel guilty for the texts that distracted me and didn't return, and for never judging the path I've taken even though it's so different from yours. Thank you for keeping me valued and for sending me new music and funny cat and dog videos—I appreciate it more than you know. Thank you for being my soft place to fall, my firmest defender, my savior, right-hand man, first best friend, adventure partner, secret keeper, little sister.
I missed you today.
Dedicated to Angela… my little sister.
Text Adapted by Cristina Oroz Bajo
Original Source in Littles Love and Sunshine.