There have been many experiences in my life that have caused me to be who I am today; divorce, moving, etc. However, I believe my most life-changing experience was when my little sister died. I was only seven at the time. She was two. My cousin’s had been babysitting us because my mom was at work.
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My cousin, Rosemary, had just gone into her room to check up on her. She came out yelling.

“Help, something’s wrong with the baby. Call 911! She won’t wake up.”
My other cousin, Bianca, came running to check on her. She then called my mom and told her what was happening. My mom starting yelling at her, telling her to call the police. She hung up the phone and then called the cops. She frantically told them what happened and they said they were on their way. They took awhile to get there, or at least it felt like awhile. While we were waiting for the cops to get there, I mistakenly walked into her room. That’s when I saw her. The body of my sister I would later have nightmares about. She was as white as the walls. Thankfully, her eyes were closed. There was white foam coming out of her mouth. I slowly walked over to her and touched her for what would be the last time. She was ice cold. At that moment, the cops and the ambulance arrived and took me away from her. They went into her room and put her on a stretcher. Then they started to bring her down the stairs. My mom came as they were bringing her down and started CPR on my sister. My sister wasn’t waking up and my mom could barely do CPR because she was so distraught. The EMT’s finally got her down the stairs and into the ambulance. One of the cops came over and attempted to stop my mom from climbing into the ambulance. My mom was so distraught with grief that she didn’t even care about what she was going to do next. She started fighting the cop and then tackled him in her attempt to get into the ambulance. Finally, the cops said she could ride in the ambulance. The few hours we had to wait in the house felt like years as we waited for any news about my sister. Then, finally, my mom came home. You could tell she had just been crying.

“Come over here,” she said. And she took my brother and me both on her lap.

“Your sister is in heaven now,” she said. “She’s not going to be living with us anymore.”

“She’s dead,” I asked.

“Yeah, Jessi. She’s gone.”
As soon as my mom said that, my brother and I started sobbing.
It couldn’t be true, I thought. Only old people die, kids don’t die. My mom was lying. Anytime now my little sister is going to walk through that door. It had to be true. Right?
Even as I was thinking that, I knew it wasn’t true. My little sister was never coming back. She was gone.
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A few weeks later

“Come on guys. Let’s go,” yelled my mom.
It was the day of the funeral. We had all just finished getting ready. My mom and I were in black dresses while my brother was in a black suit. We got into the car and drove to the funeral home. We got there when people were just starting to arrive. We walked up to her casket and paid our respects. I kneeled down and said a quick prayer, and then I looked at the picture of her by the casket. She was so beautiful. I couldn’t help myself, I started crying again. I still couldn’t believe she was gone.
A few hours later, the funeral was over and it was time to go to the burial. The hearse went ahead to set up. When we got there, the casket was already suspended in the hole, waiting to be lowered. As they started lowering, we threw flowers on top of the casket.
A few weeks after the funeral, my mom got news from the medical examiner. She had died of a seizure. She had a seizure disorder. There was also a cigarette wrapper in her mouth. That’s what my mom and I are still confused about. She was the only adult in the house and she didn’t smoke, so how could a cigarette wrapper have gotten in her mouth?
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Everything after the funeral is pretty much a blur. This is one of defining moments in my life because my life was basically ruined. I had just lost one of the people in my life closest to me. We also had to deal with moving because soon after her death, we moved out of that apartment because my mom couldn’t deal with the memories. Her death also made me a tougher person. I never again wanted to feel that pain. My mom became a lot more cautious with us. She didn’t want us to get hurt either.