I close my eyes.

I see two little girls side by side in matching ensembles-spring coats and companion hats-hers lavender, mine canary yellow.

Little hands crumpled inside of each others.

Wide toothless smiles and uneven pixies.

We were each others.

Peering over the other side of the camera was the love of our lives. She was our anchor to each other, to her, to the very ground beneath our feet. At that time in my mind, life was simpler-even the way I perceived my big sister from my little self. My sister embodied so much of what I aspired to be. She was bigger, older, stronger, smarter. In my eyes better in every way. She led, and I followed. If she wanted purple, so did I. If she wanted pink, so did I. In fact I don’t think it mattered what I may have preferred, I just needed to be in tandem with her. She became my reference point for life in so many ways. This need only grew for me after my mom died suddenly. It was just a few years after that Easter photo of us in our spring coats. Mom no longer there, the axis point at which our entire lives pivoted; No longer there peering over the lens, no longer anchoring us-leaving us untethered and floating. We were like two shrunken balloons coiled together. We would hover and bob, but always together. We were each others. We were inextricably tied together-now through loss and trauma….

What happened to those little girls that were so in sync-withered, but in sync. How did they end up floating so far away from each other? When did the uncoiling happen? Were they both trying so hard to stay afloat that it somehow seemed necessary to separate in order to do so?