On the day I found out my dad had a year to live, I was standing at work, typing away stupidly about something I can’t remember now. And in an instant, I was catapulted into a terrible grief I knew nothing about. Like a dark room I’d never entered, feeling my way around. Gemma called my boss, my colleagues, and my best friends. Ordering one to give me time off, to get coffee, and to buy moving boxes. In the apartment, I couldn’t even remember my own name. Gemma found my passport, called my sister and arranged a pick up, and booked my flight for the next morning. Early but not too early, because she said I needed sleep. How do I even begin to pack right now? Gemma told everyone what to do. She put on my favourite songs, Taylor Swift, whom she didn’t particularly care for, and made the executive decision to toss my near-empty shampoo bottles. We walked through a handful of outfits I’d need - certainly comfy ones - as Gemma proposed. And when I’d come back to collect my t...
I have spent almost all my life trying to be cool. At first, it was my big sister who was the coolest. She got braces first, which I desperately wanted, and she had all the knee high boots and hair straighteners and bling-y things way before I did. When she walked out of her room in the morning I stared at her over my bowl of lucky charms like she was THE celebrity icon. There might as well have been a spotlight on her. The leader of the social ladder. Friends on friends on friends. She got to have Facebook, which of course made me jealous, but when I got a feature in the profile picture, I practically jumped out of my pants. She was cool, cool. As I got older, she got cooler. She had GUY friends. She went to university. She drank BEER. She was funny, brave, athletic, tall & skinny. Dream girl. And that wasn’t even the coolest thing about her. What made my sister rank #1 for twenty two years in a row and counting was who she was right down at the core. She never, ...