K,

It’s been almost 9 years now. I’ve really been living by the whole “grief doesn’t shrink, life gets bigger around it” thing. I graduated college but my own mental health is still bad, even on meds so I’m still living with mom and unemployed at 26 :/.

I just don’t know where to go in life really. Everything makes me feel bad and reminds me of you and our trauma overall really. I’m just used to you being there to mark the path before me and without a big sister I have to face all of it alone with no example set for me. I’m older than the few friends I have and none of them struggle the way we both have so they don’t really get it. I’m trying to forge a path on my own but I still feel like a little kid, completely lost in the woods without you.

I haven’t given up on my art and have improved a lot since you saw it last but I still feel disappointed every time I finish a painting and you’re not there to see it. I listened to an album by a band you would’ve hated bc they’re my depressing indie music, but one line the singer wrote is “I don’t want to learn anything from this”. I feel that way every time I paint you or tell someone about losing you. I don’t want you to just be a story that makes people hold their family a little closer when they hear it.

We have a stepdad now and he’s actually really great. Just when I’d given up on having real loving parents, he came into my life. I just wish you’d been around to meet him and enjoy all of the changes that have happened. I guess I would enjoy them more too if you were there to enjoy them with me like you’re supposed to be. Above anything else I miss laughing with you at stupid memes and cuddling in your awful neon magenta bedroom and doing your makeup for Xmas eve.

I hope T is with you at least and that wherever you are, you both remember playing baseball in the field with the lightning bugs and wild strawberries until it was too dark to see the ball and mom called us for dinner. I dreamt you were together after she died.
You’re missing out on H too. He’s adorable and so silly. You would’ve loved playing together.

I just hope there’s an afterlife and I see you again. I don’t want to die lately but life just doesn’t excite me. Everything seems so boring and pointless when I’m facing a future without your smile. Anyway, I hope you still exist somewhere.

Love you sis,
G