Things weren’t supposed to end like this. Marcia and I were seven years apart, and while her memory was always sharper than mine about the two years we had together before our three younger sisters came along, we remained crazy-close. She had one little brother and I had one big sister. That was something we were proud of and something we spoke about quite a bit.

Writing this in the past tense is not easy. It never will be easy to think of you in the past tense and, honestly, it makes me angry to do so, but never at you, and more about how cruel life is.

We got to spend 38 years and change together. We could never stay mad at each other. We could get fed up with other people, but never with each other. There was a time when she was 12 years old and already had a knack for saving money. I was five years old and only knew how to spend it. She and my mom left to go somewhere, and I took it upon myself to go into her room. That was my first mistake, but if I was going to mess up, it was going to be big.

To understand the love I have for my youngest sister is to go back to December 5, 1990, and understand that the sister I love deeply is the same sister that I thought was going to be my little brother. Kathrine, another one of my younger sisters felt the same way. Kathrine was tired of having an older brother who didn’t want her coming to the playground to play ball or sit together and play Nintendo. The plan was for Andrea to never be Andrea, and in our adolescent heads, or our parents telling us we would have a younger brother, we were prepared to shower a little boy with all of the love, care and ice cream we could muster up.

Then we get to the hospital and my mom is holding a newborn girl. Safe to say, neither Kathrine nor I were happy and wanted absolutely nothing to do with the newest member of the family. Sharon was cool with it because now she had a younger sibling to play with. Marcia was cool with it because Andrea was healthy and she was smart enough to realize that was the most important thing. My eight-year-old eyes refused to look her way. I threw a fit at Denton Regional Medical Center, left the delivery room and sat right down in the waiting area. Eight-year-olds can’t drive, at least in America, so driving back to the house wasn’t an option. Instead, I fumed in a chair while everyone else celebrated the birth of my youngest sister.

However, the fury was short-lived. Once I finally looked at her, it was impossible not to fall in love with her and despite having three sisters already, it was settled right there and then, that Andrea was my favorite sister and my job was to be the best big brother she could ever have.