The picture to the left was taken about 10 years ago. I was in high school; T was a toddler.

I try to update the image that accompanies this blog every month or so, and it was time, but I can't explain why I chose such an old photo. Perhaps it captured me because in it, my sister is looking at the camera, something she no longer does; perhaps I chose it because we are both so happy. Though it was taken long ago, I remember that moment as though it was just yesterday. I remember that the house was decorated for Christmas; that I bought the shirt I'm wearing at the Gap; that just before Dad snapped the picture, I squeezed T tightly as if to say, "I'm not letting go!"

So much has changed since that day...and yet so little. I still give my sister what my dad calls "bear hugs" whenever I first see her and every time we say goodbye. My parents still live in that house; I still have the shirt. And yet, the place in which we find ourselves today is a world away from that safe, fortunate one. Between that day and this one, I have finished high school and college, worked nearly five years, owned my own house for three and been married for two and a half. I have been there to receive the worst imaginable phone call, on the other end of which my mother's voice informed me that my sister is dying without having to actually say those exact words. And since the day of that phone call, I have learned more about myself and about compassion, tenacity, family and love than I learned in all my previous 24 years combined. Since that day, I have learned to say - and to believe - not that my sister is dying, but that we can save her.

I have often longed for another day like the one depicted in the photo, one on which we could live unaware of the terrible flaw in T's genes and watch her sable eyes sparkle and dance across the room. I wish for those days, but then I am reminded in my heart of the girl my sister has become these past 10 years, and I remember that my task is not to long too hard for the past, but to help her have more tomorrows.