When my sister, Jamila, was 5 years old, she woke up and couldn’t straighten her arm. My mother, baffled, took her to the doctors. They said it was just muscle problems. 6 years later, just after her 11th birthday, she was diagnosed with a soft tissue sarcoma in her left arm.

     My parents broke down and cried, as did she. But I didn’t. I didn’t cry throughout. While everyone around me was holding my shoulder, telling me it’d be alright, I never thought it wouldn’t be. My mind could not conjure a reality in which my sister did not exist.

    It changed how we spent time together. She was fragile, weak. Her hair and eyelashes had fallen out, taking away her femininity, and making her self conscious, but I always thought she was still beautiful, and made sure I told her. Her eyes, although tired, still had the same cutely mischievous sparkle they always did. And when she did smile, she still managed to light up the room. She used to bounce off the walls, and be full of energy, but during her regular trips to the hospital, she used to fall asleep on the sofa in the afternoon, and instead of annoying her, like I used to do as an older brother, I got a blanket and covered her up. She never ate, and could barely stand.

     Every time she went to hospital, she seemed to be in even more agony than before. First the chemo, which drained her every time she went in, which was 4 days a week, leaving her fatigued for the other 7. Then the tattoos on her arm she needed for the radiotherapy she would have to go through. She had to go to a special school in hospital, because she was too weak to attend a regular school. My sister had tickets to the scissor sisters, but couldn’t go because her white blood cell count was too low. She couldn’t go in any crowded place for fear of catching an infection.

     It was only after the ordeal had ended, and the tumour was removed, did I fully realise how close I was to losing my sister. Ever since then, I feel our relationship is closer than most siblings. This is definitely not a memory I will soon forget, no matter how hard I try.