As many of you know, I’ve been away dealing with the death of my sixteen year old sister. It was pretty hard; and being the oldest, I was supposed to be the strong one. And I think I did a pretty good job at it.
We’ve had the wake and funeral. They were really nice—I guess. At the wake, I spoke about Shadvina, and asked anyone else who had anything to say about my sister, to feel free to speak too. Man, did that open the flood gates.
She was a unique person, my sister. She was the kind of person who changed lives. One girl said how my sister would run behind her during track practice yelling “Pick up the pace. Come on you can do it.” She said everyday, Shadvina would do this, until the girl got her time down by a full minute, which was good enough to get the girl a scholarship.
Another kid said that she would talk to my sister often about faith. But the girl said she didn’t have time for that, and she didn’t want to think about it. The day my sister died, she said she went home, dropped to her knees and prayed. I think that girl cried more than we did.
Teacher after teacher talked about the kind of person Shadvina was—the person that we, as her family, didn’t know.
And to think, she looked up to me. She once told me that it would be hard to fill my shoes. She was a writer, a poet and an inspiration.
How will I fill shoes like that?
