How Losing My Sister Broke Me, And Built Me

At barely eight years old, I lost my best friend. Literally, the one who had been by my side since I was five years and 2 days old. My little sister Daisy was my whole heart since the day I found out I was going to be a big sister. Daisy was the most beautiful little three year old ever. With her deep blue eyes and golden curls, she bounced around with no worry in the world. Growing up with her taught me love and how to be a friend and how to be someone to look up to. When I turned eight, Daisy turned three just two short days later. Two months and 17 days later, my best friend and little sister died in a tragic drowning accident in my uncles pool on May 1st, 2007. My heart was gone in less than a minute.

I remember the night I lost her. It replays in my head daily. I try to remember why and how it happened and how it could have been avoided, but there's nothing I can pinpoint to make her come back. I remember being in the pool with my older sister Cassidy, who I've grown up with since she was just shy of a year old. She felt the same heartbreak I did the morning we found out about Daisy. I still have the scars from that night where I was pushed off a step so Daisy could be carried in the house to be given CPR. I still hear the screams of my mother and my baby sister crying. I remember sitting on a trampoline crying my eyes out as the police questioned us each one by one about the night. I remember the sirens screaming down my driveway. That's a feeling you never want to feel again.

Weeks passed by and my heart was still broken by losing my sister. Years passed by, things got better but ultimately I would never see my best friend on this earth again. I was broken and depressed for 10 years. 10 years, this May I had a breakthrough. I graduated high school and going to my dream school on a scholarship. I was broken for 10 years because of the death of my sister. Now 10 years later, I'm free and happy.

Her death taught me that heart break exists in the real world. Life is temporary and fragile. In a split second, a life can be taken and a life can be given. I learned how to love and hate, how to forgive and forget, how to be loved, how to be a friend and enemy, and how to become my own self. Daisy was and is my bestfriend. She is my guardian angel and the hurt I experienced losing her is like no other. My heart resides in Heaven and God only knows the day I will see her shining face again.