I don’t know how it felt to grow up with me as a sister. I only know how it felt to be yours. When you were born, I didn’t know anything about being a big sister, so I imitated Mom, hoisting you onto my hips at nine years old, like real live baby dolls.

I was in first grade when Anni was born and I asked to take her in for show and tell. Somehow Mom agreed to bring her to the school. We walked around the room with you and I pointed out to everyone that pulsing soft spot on your fuzzy little head where I could see your heartbeats if I watched carefully and Marcus Sapp asked if he could pet you.

From the moment I met you I wanted two things – to take care of you and to show you off. I was still a child and we fought like children, but what I wanted most was to make you laugh and for you to never be hurt.

I often hear people say they have no real regrets because even their mistakes taught them something. I have real regrets. I regret that I wasn’t home to see you grow. I left home when you were 13 and 11 and I never really came back. I regret that I didn’t drive you to school on your first day of high school, or go shopping for your prom dress, or help you practice for your driving test, or weigh the pros and cons of different colleges with you, or the million moments that I missed in between.

Maybe I had to go. Maybe I couldn’t have become who I needed to become if I had stayed. But I should have tried harder to be with you, to be a part of it all. I’m sorry. I will always be sorry.

Now you are women – strong, beautiful, caring women. Women who are brave enough to do hard things, who make a way where none exists, who see the world the way it could be and chase after that vision relentlessly. You are women I want as my friends, but I’m not sure I know how to move forward.

For years we defined ourselves and our place within our family in contrast to one another. Maggi was the athletic and passionate one, Anni was the artistic and shy one, I was the brainy goody-two-shoes, afraid to rock the boat. We each played a particular role, and we came to know each other in those roles, but now we have outgrown them.

We are those people, and yet we aren’t those people and sometimes it feels like it’s all too much. It’s too much for me to change and you to change too. Because here is a truth I never expected to find–I don’t quite know who I am without you.

You are my history, you are woven through the threads of my life in ways even I don’t  understand. But you are also my future. Because no matter where we’ve gone and what we’ve done, no matter how many moments we’ve missed, one thing has stayed the same. My truest, deepest, down-in-my-belly feelings towards you are the same. I want to take care of you and to show you off. I want you to be safe and I want you to laugh often and I want the whole world to see how amazing you are.

So I will keep trying. I will hold you fiercely inside of my heart and I will try to find ways to show you that I am proud of you, that I am dazzled by you, that I love you. But also that I want to know you, just as you are, right now, even from across the world.