Every time I hear a Bee Gees song, a warm feeling courses through me. I am taken to the back of an Audi A6, to the year 2011, on the way to karate class. I am taken back to the warmth of cornbread, breathing life into my cold hands, to the feeling of pure bliss as the car heater wiped clean the cold of my ankles. I remember drawing on the windows, tracing pictures to give form to the thoughts in my mind, appearing as intricate swirls and squiggles. I look at my sister now, wondering if she thinks the same way. Does she remember those times?
The opulent magic of Queen and the charismatic Freddie Mercury take me back to the year 2015, the start of my sixth grade year, the summer when everything changed. The summer when I felt the inner stirrings of change; realizing that my youth was now or never, feeling the slippage of the current times, knowing they could not be mine forever. I rocked in the back of the car with my sister, swaying as the champions we were, the champions I had declared we would always be, even as a I slowly changed. “You’re My Best Friend”, I sang to her. Who knew I could be so fickle? I wonder if my sister remembers the time when I became a little older but none the wiser. Does she cherish those times?
The magic of Michael Jackson kept me rockin’ and moonwalking towards the start of my mature, adolescent youth-hood. I strove for an image: I wanted to change who I saw in the mirror. Who would she be, I wondered to myself. I wanted to know, wanted to find her myself. I began upon a path of self-improvement, full of “How To Not Procrastinate” books and uplifting podcasts. On my journey of self discovery, I found myself further secluded from my family, my sister. In the comfort of my room, I could see nothing but myself: my first flaw, my first wrong. The door to my mind and my room worked the same, and I shut my sister out with both. But, of course, she worked her way in, becoming a calming presence in my room and my heart. Will she feel hurt, remembering my seclusion, my caustic comments, the way I shut her out? Does she hurt because of those times?
As I near the end of my sheltered life, not quite ready for college but on my way nonetheless, I wonder if she remembers those times as clearly as I do. I wonder how my sister will be without me, and if she remembers swaying in the back of the car, or if she will ever tear up just thinking about me, the way that I do when I think of her. She’s like me in so ways, but so much better in those ways. And for that I will always have pride.
Because, even when I go, I can be certain that a piece of me will always be here: the piece I left with her, the one who kept me going, the teetering yet ever-passionate one, my sister.
Thank you, for all you are.
– Pihu J.