A Letter to My Sister

Sister of mine,

Growing up as the older sibling, I was always there when mom had to go to work, run an errand, or was still sleeping because she was so tired from the day before. I grew up real quick. I had to. I had to take care of you and even when you screamed that I wasn’t your mom, I still cared for you. I was never trying to be your mom, because that role is rightfully our mother’s.

However, I still cared for you deeply. I wanted you to be the best person you could be. I was thrown so much responsibility, I don’t think you will ever get how much I did for you. I cooked for you, I helped clean, I helped you with your homework when I had my own homework to do. Eventually, I didn’t want to help you with homework because I had so much on my plate. As much as I cared for you, I wanted our mother to be proud of me. I was trying to become involved with sports and clubs on top of trying to do my homework and projects on time.

I don’t think you will ever understand how much was sacrificed for you to be here today. Our mother was a single mother, playing both roles for as long as you lived. Our father was never really in the picture. Until recently, he’s been trying to catch up but I have become too exhausted to explain my whole life to a stranger that left us so long ago. But you, you want everything to work out. You would have wanted for our father to have joined us here in the United States and for us to be a perfect family. But, reality hits, and it’s just not that easy to forget about what he has done.

You are now much older, you are legally an adult, and all that I ask if for you to take care of yourself. I hope that you go after what you really want because lately you’ve been just going with the flow of things. Sometimes, that is fine, but if you don’t have goals or dreams to go after, you won’t be living the best life that I know you deserve. I want you to take life by the horns and meet new friends, lifetime friends, go on adventures, even if it means traveling across the country or across the world. I want you to take a chance at life and really enjoy it because our mother has sacrificed so much for you to not do anything. She wants to see you succeed in whatever you decide to do as much as I want you to.

From your only sister in life (biologically anyways),

xoxo