Dear Ed,

Happy birthday – today if you were still part of this world, you would have turned 46. How crazy it is that you will eternally be stuck at 33 years of age in my mind. I turned 39 this year. How did I actually become older than you? Is it even possible to get older than your older sibling?

I’m back in our home city with Chris and Kaia. On Sunday, our mother let Kaia out of the house unattended, and Kaia almost ran up the entire block by herself. I ran out to get her just in time and brought her back down to the house, but all I could think of during that time was… first, they let Ed die, and now, they want to let their grandchild die, too? How could they possibly be this irresponsible and stupid? Or, maybe I am really the irresponsible and stupid one. I was the one who allowed Kaia into their dungeon of a house. I was the one who left her unattended with our mother to lure her out of the house without Chris and me in the first place. Maybe I’m the real problem here for allowing this situation to even happen. Maybe I just cannot accept that this house could not be more “normal” and welcoming than it actually is.

I get told by my friends who knew our parents that ultimately, I allow this emotional exhaustion to happen. I need to set better boundaries — everyone seems to tell me this, including both therapists I saw. Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, we didn’t really have the verbiage to describe things like mental load, emotional load, emotional exhaustion. But now, we do. Now, I know that the feeling of exhaustion and heaviness was real whenever I’d go home and then leave home to go back to New York. I know now that when Chris would say I’d come back to New York really tense and seemingly uptight from San Francisco that it was all just the residual effects of dealing with our parents — emotional load. And it really took a toll on me. It still does.

“Why do you even bother?” a friend asked me yesterday. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. This is all on you.” I feel sad that our parents won’t ever be proper grandparents to Kaia. I want them to have a relationship. But I know it really won’t happen. You can’t really have people be real grandparents when they didn’t even figure out how to be decent parents. It’s just a pipe dream that I am still struggling to come to terms with. There’s what you rationally and academically know, and that always seems to conflict with the feelings and desires of your heart.

I think I’m out of words. You’re the only one who knows how bad it can be in that house with them. And you’re gone. No one else has first hand experience of it. And sometimes when I think about it, it makes me feel even more alone. I’m not saying you should still be here just to shoulder the burden of this knowledge. But it would be nice if we could still be together to empathize with each other… and just be. There is a hollow in my heart that will never be filled because you left this world far too soon.

Did you know that Kaia knows who her JiuJiu is? I told her it was your birthday today. She even recognizes your face sometimes when I show her photos of you. She’s over three and a half now, and she’s constantly surprising me with all the things she’s learning and absorbing, and all that she remembers that we’ve told her. I know you’d be so happy and proud of her if you were here. My sweet little Kaia Pookie will never meet her JiuJiu in real life. And that loss is not just a loss for her and you — it’s a loss for me, too.

I’m trying to do what I can to be a good mama to her and not perpetuate intergenerational trauma. I say that almost every week to myself, if not every year to you when I write you. I’m almost like a broken record about this in my head. I’m just trying my best. I hope you know and can see this.

I really miss you, Ed. It’s strange. Even twelve years after your death, when I am in that house, I still have this weird feeling of anticipation that out of nowhere, the front door will open, and in you will come. It’s 100 percent irrational, but I still have the feeling in the back of my mind and in my body that it will happen.

I love you. Take good care of yourself wherever you are out there. I am always thinking of you — I hope you don’t ever forget that.

With all my love,

your little sister Yvonne