On August 8th, when I was three years old, I got the gift of a little sister. I am sure I only picked on her a few times throughout our childhood. Needless to say, although we were a few years apart, we got along very well and became best friends. She went with me wherever I went. Maybe I was made to take her, but I enjoyed every minute with her.
We grew up in a town where many of the kids in my grade had younger siblings in her grade. We grew up in a town where most of the parents were in the same social class and made about the same amount of money. We grew up in a town where there wasn’t a lot of diversity, but no one was cultural bias either. We grew up in a town where kindergarten students rode the bus with seniors in high school and it wasn’t a big deal because everyone had an older cousin to keep an eye on them. We grew up in a town where we walked home safely from school. We grew up in a town where we played outside until dark. We grew up in a town where most parents knew each other and a lot of them even went to school together.
As you read in “How Did I Get Here“, my sister and I grew up close to our grandparents. We took family trips together. We took Catholic school classes together. She was my best friend. I went off to college and even though I was only 30 minutes away, I think she felt left behind.
After college, I moved away. After a few months in California, I ended up in Virginia. I begged her to follow me after she graduated, and three years later, she did. I told her you can always go back but if you don’t take the plunge and move away after college, you may never go.
We played sports together through River City Sports and Social Club and Richmond Volleyball Club. She eventually got a job teaching in the same county where I was working. She coached volleyball, I coached basketball, and we coached JV softball together. She was an inspiration to the girls, and we both had a “work hard, be respectful, make good grades” coaching style. We enjoyed the girls, and I think they enjoyed us.
Our dad was fighting lung cancer at the time and after five years of teaching, she decided she wanted to go back to our hometown in Northwestern Pennsylvania to get her nursing degree. She moved back home and helped with Dad for almost two years. After she finished her nursing degree, she decided to come back to Virginia.
She got a job at one of the local hospitals. It was there where she met her husband, who was a frequent visitor because his mother was there battling Crohn’s Disease. After three years of dating, they got married. My dad made it to her wedding day and had enough strength to walk her down the aisle without his cumbersome oxygen tank. In May 2012, he took his last breath. My mom, sister, and I were there to hold his hand as he rose into the afterlife. Although he didn’t get to see his first grandchild, he knew my sister was pregnant. A few months later, she gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl. Three years later, my nephew was born.
In December 2016, we got the most horrifying news. My sister had a cyst. When they removed it, they found out it was malignant. We couldn’t believe it and didn’t want to go through another battle with cancer.
I was so sure she would beat it. Our father fought lung cancer for eight years and even lived another year with a collapsed lung. I had no doubt she would have at least nine more years here on Earth.
But I was wrong. In May 2018, we (my mom, brother-in-law, and myself) surrounded her as she took her last breath at the young age of 38. I am not sure why God took her. It makes me so sad, mad, and upset. I don’t understand his plan. Her body was ravaged by a cancer that could never be pinpointed. It spread like wildfire. It was devastating. I am thankful she is no longer suffering, but I miss my best friend every day. I miss her advice. I miss her kind heart. I miss her smile. I miss her for the children, her husband, and our mother.
I launched on August 8th, my sister’s birthday, in her honor and memory. She will forever live in my heart, giving me strength and inspiring me every time I look at her pictures and those two little children of hers.