Yesterday...

Yesterday, my sister died.

You see, I must have written about the worst day of my life before, but you see this experience? It tops them all.

When I got the call, for a moment, I couldn't quite pick an expression between shock and sadness. I was somewhere in the middle, struggling to comprehend what I had just heard. All I could do was cry, scream and pray.

I believe in miracles, and I thought, God could surely show up, yeah? Surely, this couldn't be how her story ended. Surely, there was still room for a miracle.

I cried through the night and even this morning as I packed a few things and prepared to go home. On the bus ride from school to my father's house, I had so much going on in my mind.

I was worried they would bury her before I got home. I really wanted to see her one more time. I began to panic when I couldn't remember what she had saved my number as. I know she calls me "love of my life" and "Yebo" and "Bubu", but for some reason, I couldn't recall what she had saved my number with.

And then I began worrying about whether she would feel unfulfilled on the other side. She had so many dreams, so much potential, so much life ahead of her. The world hadn't even gotten to see half of what she was capable of. There was still so much she wanted to do, so much she could have become, so many versions of herself we hadn't gotten to meet.

The memories of her, our conversations, our bond, flooded my mind, and I was on the verge of losing it. I cried silently on the bus, trying to hold myself together. But through it all, what gave me some strength was the knowledge that she was in a better place, free from pain.

And perhaps that's one of the strangest things about grief. Your heart is breaking because someone you love is no longer here, but your faith reminds you that they are no longer hurting. You want them back, desperately, but you also find comfort in knowing that they are somewhere beyond the reach of everything that could hurt them.

I don't know how to make sense of losing her yet. I don't know how to reconcile all the things we still had ahead of us with the reality that we won't get to experience them together. I only know that I loved her, that she was loved, and that I will carry the memories of her for as long as I live.

Dearest reader, please, love your people. Say the things you want to say. Make the calls, have the conversations, take the pictures, create the memories. Not because you should live in constant fear of losing them, but because life is terribly unpredictable, and sometimes, the ordinary moments we barely pay attention to become the memories we would give anything to experience one more time.

Some people leave this world, but they never quite leave the lives they touched.

Rest well, my love.

09/11/2026