To my little sister,

My little sister game has been off lately. Well, not lately. It's been a while. I think what I say may sound 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 messages that don't come back or phone calls that find me distracted on the other end of the line as I peel yogurt out of my son's hair. Our conversations now seem to be snatched up by the moments we can squeeze out of our busy lives, but I'm painfully aware that they're more on my timeline than yours. I am painfully aware that we are gone and you are 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 miss 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 path, I suspect our paths rarely cross, they are so divergent.

But still, I've missed you today.

Yesterday I called my eldest 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, openness, willpower and high-voltage laughter. Its ability to delight and enrage me to an unmatched extent. And in other ways too: I feel protective of her that I didn't even realize that I've spent your entire life feeling that way about you. It's magnified now that I'm her royal 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, sister. Not only for our childhood, but also for our young adulthood. I took you with you, gave you my ID, and tried my best to cover for you when you did something naughty. As kids I liked how easy it was to go boss around, and later I felt lucky to have a last call built into the day, a go-to person and a wing woman.

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 realized 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 very much like us… I'm not going to feel sorry for my absence but I hope you know that I'm sorry too.

I hope you know that I've missed you today.

As I watch my two sons/siblings become brothers 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, her existence has made me who I am. Our union is not and has never been a choice – it is inevitable, a law of nature. Without you I would be a yin without a yang, a left without a right, a girl without her sister.

This weekend, when I woke up to the news of another incomprehensible act of cowardice and barbarity committed in London, my heart sank into my throat and I reached before my eyes were open to my phone. Of course I knew the chances of you getting caught in the attack were low, but even the thought of so much violence being perpetrated in a nearby neighborhood made my own stomach turn cold. It is there and nothing will ever change it.

So my dear sister – these are the things they never seem to have time to tell you. Thank you for everything we have had between us and for all the things we will have in the future when our paths come closer again, as I have no doubt. Thank you for loving my two little ones as fiercely as you only know how, even though you have them so far away, you never make me feel guilty for the messages that distracted me and never came back, and for never judging the path I have taken despite which is very different from yours. Thank you for keeping me valued and for sending me new music and fun cat and dog videos – I appreciate it more than you know. Thank you for being my soft place to fall, my strongest defender, my savior, right hand, first best friend, adventure participant, secret keeper, little sister.

I miss you today.

Dedicated to Angela… my little sister.

Text Adapted by Cristina Oroz Bajo

Original Source at Littles Love and Sunshine.