When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I was no longer in my house I don’t know how I knew, but I know it wasn’t my house. Darkness evolves around me as if I fit in this puzzle. It’s as if I’m meant to be here. To be in this place I can’t quite call home but it feels like it is though it isn’t. My first instinct is to stand so I do. I stand up and take a look around the room. I know I’ve been here before. And then out of the blue, something hits me. Like a thought, I’d been trying to avoid. Mom and dad. The last thing I remember was my mom & dad telling me goodbye on their way to their business trip. That seems like it wasn’t too long ago. Maybe it’s a prank. But who would prank me like this? The room I’m left in is a greyish-darkish color very plain and bland. It feels like it’s trying to trick me for some reason. I try to open the door but it’s locked. I don’t scream or do anything else knowing I might as well be kidnapped if I’m in a situation like this so I decided to keep calm. I spot a bunch of pictures lying around the room in the dim moonlight so I pick one up. It’s a girl holding up dandelions to the person taking the picture. She’s smiling at the dandelions on her hands as if it’s the only thing in the world that brings her peace and happiness and somehow I can see all of the details in the dim moonlight. I remember this. I don’t know how I know this girl but I do because it’s a memory of mine. A lot of my childhood has been hazy to me so I never paid attention to it growing up but this. But this wasn’t something I could ignore. I forget all about the situation I’m currently in and start analyzing more of the pictures. Children like to store happy memories but forget the ones that they can’t handle. Of course, children are naive and straightforward. I never paid attention to this fact ever really because it just didn’t apply to me. Mom and Dad always surrounded me with everything I wanted all the time. But they didn’t understand that I wanted to spend time with them. The one thing I most wanted was them. Not stupid designer clothes and bags. I wanted them to know their daughter by heart not by what items they think I want on my birthdays and holidays. There is a knock on my door. I don’t know why they’re knocking considering the door is locked. Then they seem to remember that it's locked so they unlock it. I don’t know why but I leave the photos I was so invested in. Someone I think I’m supposed to know greets me with a hello. It’s a lady maybe in her 30s. Her long dark hair swayed behind her as she comes up to me to check my wrist for my pulse. Then my eyes with a flashlight she pulls out from her doctor uniform. “Your all good to go!” She tells me. “Where exactly am I supposed to go? Why am I here? Why are you checking on me? What is happening?” I ask all at once. “I know all of this must be very confusing to you. But I promise you your parents will explain all of this to you. This is not my job to explain this to you as your parents have strictly told me to not get involved with your guys’ business.” The unknown doctor says. “Follow me.” She tells me. I do as I am told. I follow her lead. I can’t help but notice all the baby pictures of a kid that looks an awful lot like me or is me. She leads me through what seems like an endless walk through endless hallways. Finally, we reached something that looked like a conference room. I spot my parents sitting there in the darkness. I couldn’t tell Mother’s mood due to the straight face of hers.. Dad seemed like he wasn’t ready at all to be discussing whatever they were going to discuss with me right now. He tried to smile and show some effort in order to make up for their behavior but it wasn’t convincing. “You may leave us, Cheryl,” Dad told the doctor. “Sit down.” Mom offered me with no expression seeking through her straight face. I couldn’t tell what was going to be revealed to me right now but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good. “Listen, we’re going to tell you the truth of something that we probably told you a while ago me and your mother don’t know how you’ll take this but we thought it was best if we didn’t hide this from you.” Dad says first to break the awkward silence, though it was normal for us. We always ate in silence and did our own things when they were around at the house. “Sure, start wherever you guys feel like but first can I know where we are?” I say and ask. “That’ll be in the story don’t worry” Dad explains. “So to start off with I’m sure you’ve noticed that you don’t remember much of your childhood.” I know this is a lot to take in so I’m going to go slow. When you were born you had a twin sister. You were both healthy while growing up but then right when you guys turned 4 something in her turned off-” Mom stops to look at the expression on my face but looks like she expected this so she continues. “ Something that just turned her childish side off. I’m sure you’ve looked at the pictures that were laid around your roo- your sister's room.” I’m not sure how I’m comprehending all this information without any emotion swelling up inside me like I’ve experienced this already. But I let mother keep talking. “She had Bronchopulmonary dysplasia, she developed this somehow even though she showed no symptoms of this during birth. But youyou were this healthy little kid always running around while your sister was constantly going in and out of hospitals to get her lungs working just so she could breathe and stay alive. I won’t say I didn’t feel anything for her, seeing you live your life while she struggled with hers. I can’t imagine what she’d felt but I surely didn’t feel like yours was okay with hers. I grew to despise you and your acts when around her. This as a mother is one of my biggest regrets. I know you may be connecting everything that happened during your past years right now and you're on the right track to figuring this out.” I try to keep a straight face, to not show any emotion as I learned from my mother. I try to keep my emotions in check to not throw a tantrum like I’m 5. I do my best to listen and my mother sees this. “I- I’ve always felt like I knew someone but couldn’t remember them growing up but being a child I didn’t pay attention to that. It’s kind of the only thing I remember and- oh. It hits me suddenly the reason I don’t remember the memories of my childhood. Such an important and special part of my childhood that was taken away from me by choice. My choice. Dad realizes my realization and decides to continue on for mother. “Listen we were all in a position where we couldn’t think straight of anything. If your sister were here today I’m sure she wouldn't want you to forget her. But you don’t understand, the type of pain you were in when you realized that one day your sister wasn’t with you you just went into a period of shock. You didn’t want to eat, get dressed, get out of bed, or do anything. Me and your mother weren’t in any good situation either, having lost one of our daughters. But I know asking you to erase the memories of your own sister was way over the line. We couldn’t help bear the pain you were going through because you were so young and had such a long life in front of you. We didn’t want that to go to waste and I know that our way of thinking was not the best.” I stop him with my hand. “You took away a child’s memories of something special that was such a big part of her life! Do you realize the amount of confusion I've been through my whole life searching for this- this puzzle piece that never seemed to fit in for so long?” I’m out of breath saying the last sentence. My lungs feel like they don’t work. My parents took away something like this away from me by asking my child self consent of erasing that special bond, memories, and everything I had with my sister. The one I came into the world with. “I know how hard this is for you to accept but you have to understand the reason we waited for so long to explain this to you. All the treatment we’ve given you throughout the years was for this sole reason and we both regret it very much. But we know and understand now what a big mistake we’ve made by doing this. I don’t expect you to forget either of us. I just want your word that you understand the reason we did do this (name).” Mother says. I understand the struggle you guys must’ve gone through but doing this was a little- no very overboard. I won’t be able to forgive you guys for a while but, yes I understand the reason you guys did this for me. I can’t imagine how you felt watching me be all happy and cheerful growing up not knowing my own sister had died. I’m sorry for my behavior but I know telling me all of this must’ve been hard for both of you and knowing that you guys at least told me this and not kept it a secret for me for the rest of my life means a lot.” Mother and father both pull me into a hug for the first time in years. “Life is never easy and things happen. But you can’t let that trip you down. Instead, take those things and show them what you can do. Don’t back out. As a family, we won’t ever recover from this tragic experience but rather take this experience as something to hold on to. We won’t ever get your sister back but she will be in our hearts. Remember that. She is somewhere right now watching over us all and her efforts were not in vain. She put up a good fight till the end. I'm sure she wouldn’t want us to always be upset over her all the time and want us to live our life but still keep her in our hearts.” Dad says. He’s always been a person I’ve looked up to all my life, but this moment just made me want to follow him more. We all pull into a family hug once again to not forget my sister and the experience she went through. She’ll always be in our hearts.
