I’m trying to remember the first time I held you...

I’m trying to remember the first time I held you. September 21, 2007. Moses Taylor Hospital. Scranton, Pennsylvania. I was almost exactly nine and a half years old. I was nine years and one hundred ninety one days old. This may seem like a significant type of specificity and it is because for most of my life I’ve described us as ten years apart. But now, every day that we had together has meaning and I refuse to discount the one hundred and seventy five days we had between you being born and my turning ten. We are close. Closer than that. Closer than ten years.

I’ve done a lot of day counting since you died: 

• Two hundred and eighteen days between the day we found the tumors and the day you died. 

• You died when you were sixteen years and one hundred and forty seven days old. 

• You were alive for five thousand nine hundred and ninety one days.

• Five, nine, nine, one.

• You have been dead for four hundred and eighty eight days.  

• I will be ten thousand days old on July 30th.

I am trying to remember the first time I held you. I wore a white short sleeve scoop neck shirt with brown and pink plaid Bermuda shorts and a thick brown headband. You were swaddled in a white blanket with blue, yellow, and pink ducks on it. Or maybe they were chicks. I am trying to remember the first time I held you and I am kicking myself because I can only remember it through a photo. 

This scares me for many reasons: 

• I am always afraid that I don’t have access to my memories in the way that I should, but worse, if I do, 

• and I still can’t remember the first time I held you when I was nine years and one hundred and ninety one days old, 

• then what does it mean for our sister who was only nine years and twenty six days old when you died?

• What does it mean for what she will remember about the last time she held you?

• I don’t even have a picture of it. 

lylas¹,

bella

1. love you like a sister