December 30
Katrina,
Ten years now I’ve written almost daily, as often as I’ve been able, trying to reach out and make up for lost time. Has it been worth the effort? Our birthday nears, a milestone of great significance this time. Will we celebrate it together, Sister? The hourglass empties, did we make use of our years or did we waste the gifts we were given?
I have made some peace with being unable to change the past, a process that continues on; but I am still questioning your heart over all of the years we could have known one another, years that I stayed away, jealous of the love you had, the life you knew, angry that I never knew the same, refusing to see my responsibility to my own happiness.
Can you ever forgive me, Sister, for all the times I wasn’t there for you, the birthdays, the holidays, the anniversaries, the good times, the bad; when Robert died, his heart unable to withstand news of his son going to fight in a world war; when your son returned home to you safely; when your daughter married, and when you became a grandmother? All of the years without contact, did you think of me? Did you miss your sister, or had my anger towards you already driven you so far away that I never crossed your mind, dead to you except, perhaps, for the memories of two children, dressed alike, running through the countryside?
Can you sense how much it pains me to write these words, Sister? Words can never express the regret that I feel over those years. Can you ever forgive me, Sister? Is it even fair of me to speak of repentance and crave absolution?
That first letter to you, written almost ten years ago, mourning the loss of our time together, asked what sentence would be proportionate to my actions, asked how I could make amends. Yet, no letter returned. Now, I know of no other way to try then to leave this legacy of knowledge, a lesson to others not to make the same mistakes I made, a lesson to always hold on to hope.
No cost to me could ever equal the pain I’ve caused, what I’ve lost. Don’t you agree?
Deepest regrets, Sister,
Forever,
Christina
This work is fictional. Any resemblance to actual situations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
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