Dear Little Sister,
I saw you today for the very first time today. You were screaming and crying, like you knew that you had just been born into a truly insane family. I’m sorry about that by the way.
I don’t know why God chose you for us. I have enough sisters, I really don’t need another one. But, here you are, so I guess I have to live with it.
Your timing was terrible. Like everyone in our family, you’re running late. Years late.
I forgive you though. If I had your parents, I would’ve put of being born as long as could to.

Dear Little Sister,
You projectile vomited onto my backpack right as I was about to leave for school today.  If this is an analogy for the rest of our lives, I’m gonna have to send you back.

Dear Little  Sister,
As you get older you are going to learn that our family is a little bit weird. I promise that other people’s parents don’t take them to break into music festivals at the ripe age of two. Also, I think you would be hard pressed to find another mom that can burn pasta as badly as yours can.
I have to be honest with you. Not all of the things that make our family weird are good.
Most nights our dad picks up a bottle and doesn’t put it down until he’s not really our dad anymore. When I was little I don’t think there was anything I was more afraid of.
Don’t worry little one, this will not be your story. I’m here now, and I will be a warrior for you.
I’m mostly telling you this because I want you to know that this is not how its’ supposed to go. Most other dads don’t pick up bottles, and when they do most moms don’t close their eyes to it.
I don’t want you to grow into a person who grabs a bottle because no one ever taught you there was another way.

Dear Little Sister,
I know it was scary this morning when I wouldn’t wake up. You did such a good job of being brave while everyone made sure I was alright.
Right now you are too young to understand, but someday you are going to figure out that people can be sick even if they look fine on the outside. Sometimes sickness lives inside our minds rather than in our bodies. That’s what happened to me.
These sickness can be tricky, like Pete from Mickey Mouse Club House. They can make you think that you don’t want to be around anymore or that everyone else would be happier if you went away. My sickness convinced me of that last night.
I tried to leave and I’m so sorry I did. I want you to know that I love you enough to stay, but sometimes my mind gets too cloudy for me to see that. I promise it won’t happen again.

Dear Little Sister,
It happened again.

Dear Little Sister,
I love you. I love everything about you. I love the way you put your ear to my chest and say “*****, I can hear your heart beep”. I love how you wiggle your toes as you are falling asleep, just like I do. I even love it when you steal half of my cheesecake and pretend the dog ate it, even though we don’t have a dog.
There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe, happy and healthy. Even if it meant losing everything I love. Even if I had to die for it.
That is why, my love, you cannot have another piece of candy.

Dear Little Sister,
I’m leaving today.
I know what your thinking- and its’ not like before.
I can come back from place I am going. I’ll still live in this world with you rather than in the ground, you don’t have to say goodbye.
I’m going to live in this place so that I can grow taller and I might be a little different the next you see me, but I’ll still be the person who picked you up when cried in the middle of the night all those years ago.
When you were very little I promised that I’d always protect you, and that is still true. Don’t doubt that for a single second. The only difference is that now I’ll be doing it from affair, think of me as your guardian angel. You may not often see me, but I’m still there.
I know that you hear daddy talk about how easy it is for me to go, but that is not true. My heart is breaking, leaving you feels like leaving a piece of myself behind. And if I could stay I would, but I’m not meant for this place anymore.
I love you.
I have since the moment I saw you.
Thank you for being born, even if you were very very late.
Love,
Emma

I have put you in a box in the back of my wardrobe.

You live there, safe and sound next to old hats and sweaters.
Sometimes I see your box and I run my hands across the bulging sides but never do I open in it for fear that you might escape. I tell myself that you are safer there, imprisoned inside that box. After all, if I don’t have to see you I don’t have to miss you, right?

I say these lies over and over again until I believe them because the truth is a pill too bitter for me to swallow, and I’ve swallowed a lot of pills in my life.

The truth is, not all of you fits in the box in my wardrobe. Hell, I don’t think you could fit in a thousand bulging boxes - you were always so big.  

See, the rest of you resides in the back of my mind, taking up my every thought, everything thing reminds me of you and it’s getting to the point where I can see nothing else but your face.
Even though I tell myself I don’t miss you, we both know that is not true because I used to miss you when we were apart for mere moments so how could I possibly not miss you when it’s been days and weeks and months and years and it just doesn’t make any sense…

It doesn’t make any sense that I have to lock you away because we were supposed to be together forever.
Our future was matching houses right next door to each other, our children running back and forth, never asking if they could come in because the answer would always be yes. We would car pool to soccer games, school plays, dance class and graduations, not because we needed to, but because the thought of doing these things without the other made us sick to our stomachs. And when our kids were all gone we’d retire together- two old women in rocking chairs staring out at the shore, laughing and crying about all the life we had lived. This future wasn’t a dream, it was a distant reality – we were so sure of that. Do you remember when we were so sure?

I can’t seem to forget a single second of you, even the ones that burn holes in my chest and make me hate every ounce of myself.

I remember, so well, when I knew you like I knew the back of my hand – Actually, scratch that, I knew you better then I knew the back of my hand because when I was with you I never had the chance to look down.

Every line on your face, every crease in your fingers was more familiar to me than my own heartbeat, you knew me the exact same way.

I remember when, at the end of a long day, all I wanted to do was retire next to you because that’s where I was safest, the world couldn’t touch me, I was home.
You were my home.

You still are.

I think that’s why, as hard as I try I can never feel comfortable. I can never rest. Because I haven’t felt home since that day four years ago when we walked away.

You cannot be my home anymore.

See, just recently I have found a new home. It is a place that grants me invincibility- I dive off of cliffs into shallow water and jump out of airplanes without parachutes yet I’m just fine. The only catch is that I cannot take you with me.

So, I’ve set fire to the box in the back of my wardrobe, and as it is burning I am finally learning how to live without you.
But do not fear, even when the box is nothing but ashes that are scattered at opposite ends of the earth I will still remember the days in which I believed that the entire world was made up of just you and I.

And when I am an old woman in a rocking chair staring out at the shore, I will certainly be thinking about you.