Of course on this day every year I think about loss. But it’s not like its only this day. I miss her every day. But today for some reason you feel it more. The first day you got the wound that is taking forever to heal.

But what if on a day like today you try to fight the universe? What if you try to take back what you believe was stolen?

This is how I get her back. This is how I try to make you fall in love with her too.

She was funny, just ask anyone that knew her. She could always make you laugh. She was always doing something crazy. I always will remember her getting voted funniest in her class with a picture that looked like she stealing some tractor at school. She was just like that. For her it was effortless. You just wanted to be around her. Because she’d make you laugh and she’d make you feel special.

She made you have a good time. I remember one time I was trying to leave the house to go hang out with my friends and she wouldn’t let me leave. “Runaround Sue” had come on in a movie she was watching and she grabbed my arms and made me dance with her. Swinging me around and around just like the couple and the movie were doing, until I stopped resisting her and just gave in.

She was an AMAZING artist.

This is my favorite thing she ever drew. I couldn’t even believe people could do this, draw a photo and make it look exactly like the picture. I wish I had that talent. Just the way she wrote her name was beautiful. She would doodle in the margins of papers and it was better than anything I could ever do. and not only could she draw but she could write too. I’ve read her writings and even though they were sometimes sad they moved me.

She had a great imagination. She was my favorite person to play with when I was little. She could make imaginary worlds and just draw you in. I remember we used to play with the ornaments on our christmas tree and pretend they were alive. We’d create little stories for them and make them talk.

Music was such a huge part of her life.

This was always what I believed to be her favorite band and her favorite song. When I hear this song I always cry. But I cry because every single time I hear it I feel a piece of her. I remember Eddie Vedder even saying that even though he’s not in the same place he was when he wrote this song he feels that moment and remembers it every time he sings it. That’s kind of how it is for me.

But she loved all kinds of music and bands. She had lyrics posted all over her walls that she wrote out so beautifully. I remember seeing the lyrics to “Indifference” by Pearl Jam she had written somewhere and I fell in love with the song before I had even ever heard it. She had the lyrics to The Cure’s “Plainsong” on her wall. I would sit in her room and read them over and over but I had never even heard the song. I remember I made up my own melody to it and I still sing it that way sometimes.

She was the most sentimental person I have ever met. She kept EVERYTHING. Every little memento from every occasion. I wish I was as thoughtful and sentimental as her. Every old toy I have or cool thing from years past is probably hers. I always broke or wrecked my toys. She was always so careful. My mother would get us a lot of the same things. Probably because I was always envious and wanted whatever she had too. But her thoughtfulness and carefulness is why I still have an Alf puppet in perfect condition or any number of really cool 80’s toys.

She loved magazines and books. I remember one of her favorite books being Christopher Pike’s “Remember Me”. Which is kind of haunting now in retrospect. But I wanted to read everything she read. I’ve kept a lot of her books. Maybe my love of magazines came from her. She kept every single Seventeen magazine she ever read. All piled up in chronological order in her closet. She just loved the pages and pages of glossy pictures. She lined her walls with pictures of johnny depp when we were younger. Even when she grew out of those things she took all the pictures down with special care and saved them all in manila envelopes. It was just part of her sentimental nature.

I could go on and on. But my best memory ever of her is just the knowledge that she asked for me. Knowing that she wanted a little brother or sister so bad, that that’s the reason my parents had me. I really do exist because of her. And I keep existing for her every day.

Do you love her too yet?