The day my little sister finally got to be a kid again, I thought my biggest job would be keeping her from getting too tired. I did not expect a parent from my classroom to try to shame us both before we even made it to the biggest slide.
I have been an elementary school teacher for seven years, which means I know how to keep my voice calm when a room is falling apart.
Three weeks before the day at the water park, my little sister Daisy finished her last round of chemotherapy.
She is nine.
Daisy lost her hair before she lost her sense of humor.
After our parents died, I became her legal guardian with a stack of court papers, a bank account that never looked full enough, and a promise that I would keep making life feel like life.
Daisy lost her hair before she lost her sense of humor. She would grin at nurses and ask whether bald people needed less shampoo, then get sick twenty minutes later and fall asleep with her hand in mine.
Then her oncologist finally said, “She is strong enough for a full day out.”
Daisy looked at me from the exam table.
I thought the hardest part of that day would be keeping her from doing too much too fast.
“Can we go somewhere with big slides,” she whispered, “like normal kids?”
I booked two tickets that night.
I thought the hardest part of that day would be keeping her from doing too much too fast.
She spent almost an hour choosing a swimsuit online. She picked a bright yellow one with little white flowers on the straps and then insisted that I buy a yellow one too.
“We can look related on purpose,” she said.
We had done the lazy river twice.
“Are you sure I can do the big slides?” she asked.
“We start small,” I told her.
“That means yes.”
“That means we listen to your body.”
She rolled her eyes.
Not the soft little hospital laugh she used when she was trying to act fine for me.
I noticed Evan once near the splash area before any of it started.
Real laughter.
We had done the lazy river twice, shared fries, and found one medium-sized slide she loved because it made her shriek on the way down and then demand to go again immediately.
I was just a sister at a water park.
I noticed Evan once near the splash area before any of it started. He was trying to balance on the edge of a fountain wall while his father followed behind him with two towels over one shoulder.
I turned around and saw one of my students’ mothers marching toward me.
That was how I knew his family was there.
Then someone shouted my name.
