Adults make decisions.
Adults sign papers.
Adults move houses, change jobs, separate families, and promise that everything will eventually make sense.
Children simply experience the consequences.
That was how it happened to us.
My sister and I had been close as children. We shared the ordinary things that seem insignificant when you’re young but become priceless when you’re older.
We played together.
We argued over silly things.
We laughed at jokes that probably weren’t funny.
We knew each other’s habits and moods without having to ask.
She was part of the background of my childhood in the same way the kitchen table, the front door, and the sound of familiar footsteps were.
I assumed she always would be.
Children rarely imagine that someone they love could suddenly disappear from their lives.
But one day, she did.
I was too young to understand everything that was happening.
There were conversations I wasn’t allowed to hear.
There were explanations that never made sense.
There were adults trying to make difficult decisions while the children around them were left to cope with the consequences.
And then, somehow, my sister was gone.
## The Questions That Stayed With Me
At first, I believed she would come back.
Children measure time differently.
A week feels enormous.
A month feels endless.
But eventually, I began to understand that her absence wasn’t temporary.
She wasn’t coming home tomorrow.
Or next week.
Or next month.
Years passed.
I grew older.
She grew older somewhere else.
