Favorite Memory

When I was four years old, about the time any other kid would be bragging about being four and a half, I was told by my parents that my mother was pregnant, I knew what this was because my cat had already had two litters and my parents were always honest with me. I was, unlike many of my friends who had siblings, excited.

I remember wishing for a little boy, I planned on teaching him how to fight, make model cars, draw, and how to count. I knew we were going to be good friends. To be honest I expected him to come out a fully functional three year old boy because that was as far back as I could remember.

When my mother told me it was going to be a beautiful little girl, well the dreams of that little boy did not matter, and I immediately started planning her beauty pageants and dance recitals she was going to be everything that was girly in her older sister. I helped my parents paint my little room pink, a color I did not care for, and I gave up some of my favorite toys to decorate her side of the room. I was going to be the best big sister on earth; I had taken care of baby dolls so a living little girl was not going to be anything new.

Well the date neared and we went to the hospital, I do not remember much of the next few days, they blurred together, we stayed at the hotel in the hospital, mom was very ill and so was my baby, my sister, my Jayd. I saw her for the first time and she was as dark as my dad with his thick black hair, but she had tubes coming out of her mouth and sides, she had IV’s in her little arms and legs. I did not understand but she was dying.

I knew what death was, that year I had seen a kitten crushed in a wall and another one of my cats was killed by a stray. I just did not understand how something so beautiful, so wonderful, so perfect could be dying like a kitten who climbed into a car before it was started. I understood a great deal but that fact I could not wrap my mind around.

It was March third, the first time anyone put that baby in my arms, which was the first time I ever truly felt happiness. She was small; my little arms were able to support her without a struggle. Her heartbeat was slow and steady; I could feel it on the palm of my hand. She did not have tubes or IV’s anymore. The second she was in my arms everyone else was gone, I was alone with my own angel in a long white hallway waiting for God to say it is time. I held her tightly willing time to slow to her heartbeat.

At four years old I held my beautiful baby sister until her little heart stopped beating. I will forever cherish this single moment in time because I had, even if it was for a few seconds, a little angel. I had someone who, even though she could never understand it, made my life better. She has been my wall to lean on, my little shove to get better, and to be better.