Dear Sister

I listened to a message you had left that sunny September day in 2023, letting me know you were in the hospital – ‘doing okay,’ although you said you were feeling very weak.

It’s hard to listen to now because you’re gone. It was just three months from your diagnosis to your death. As we talked during those months, you said that it had been a couple of years that things were starting to not feel right. You said you were tired all the time, and you couldn’t get to your doctor, and when you finally did, he minimized what was happening. Unfortunately, you weren’t someone who would demand being adequately treated.

By the time they had ordered tests when you had called me from the hospital, it was already basically too late (although no one could know that in the moment).

But I think you did know. I think that’s why you had me take you home that night. I’m sure you were terrified, and you were trying to run from it. I understand it now in a way that I didn’t before.

I’m so sorry that we never got back to the kind of friendship we had in our twenties. I don’t really know what happened, but maybe it was just time moving on and life shaping us.

I hope you know that I always loved you, and always wished that we could be friends again. I know that you loved me, but I didn’t feel like you liked me very much, and I felt hurt and defensive.

If there’s another place where I’ll see you again, I hope that we’re in our best selves with each other. But I’ll be glad to see you no matter what.

I’m also glad I saved your message – I’ll take the bitter to have the sweet.