The first memory I have of my sister was of us, going to piano lessons together and when we were done, she would leave minutes before me, my heart panicking, racing as I ran after her running down the street to catch up to her only for her to stop long enough to let me catch up so our mother could see us...walking together home.

It was always like that, when we were young, she was the middle child and I the youngest. She could paint, was a student leader of her class and always knew how to smooth out any situation. As the years went by and I was 16 and pregnant, my sister drove like mad from Kingsville to meet her first nephew and the apple of her eye, Nathan. She would be the BEST aunt ever! And as the years progressed and we grew older together, we shared so many laughs, eating way too much and shopping together when we would visit. Baseball games and dancing, swimming, and yes sadly, even sharing the early beginning burdens of our mother getting sick.

When our mom died, it was the first shared experience of us losing our warrior mom. Our mom was your biggest hero and well, the one person who could bring you down to reality in a New York second. We gently maneuvered through this loss together and shortly after my sister, got engaged, married, and had her first child.

The years that followed brought more children into the fold and while sisters at heart, we also carried on in our own lives – careers, children, husbands. The distance between San Antonio and Dallas is about 5 hours apart, and it grew harder and harder to celebrate moments.

In 2013 our father got sick and the following year, we endured many sisterly challenges. Our brother was always Switzerland. Neutral, never wanting to tip the boat between sisters. After our father died and my husband soon there, after she was the one closing down Carl’s office with me. I recall her holding my hand down so I could sign the paperwork because my shaking hands could not be still. She was the rock.

She drove to Denver that year to see me and the kids for Christmas and stayed until she had to return for her own family holiday. It was then I stood in the front yard of my cold rental home and cried. Cried because I was alone.

The years that followed were in and out, me trying to figure out my new life and being silent and still. My sister being patient.

And so, as I help her celebrate her Birthday, the image of waves hitting the beach shores comes to mind. We used to walk the beaches in the morning with our mom, picking up sand dollars...skipping in the waves. While we have had years together and some apart, we can still sit, laugh, talk the serious talk and look at each other in the eyes and see our mother and father’s facial expressions, and know, like waves hitting the beach, we will always have each other.