Our Letter to Evie
I recently read somewhere that grief is love’s unwillingness to let go. If this is true, my family and I will be with grief everyday for the rest of our lives, but it won’t be in vain. Evie is kind, resilient, courageous and so full of life; so much so that she’s too much for this world. She can make you laugh, cry, and want to shake her all at the same time. She is everything that I am and all who I strive to be; an authentic inspiration through action and charisma, not explanation. Evie isn’t talk, she’s action. Any goal she has ever set, she’s achieved. She embodies radiant self-confidence and direction, all with a genuine, unparalleled love of life I can only read about in my favorite novels. She tells it like it is and isn’t ashamed to be herself. To me, Evie can do no wrong, couldn’t be funnier, couldn’t be more beautiful, and no one can frustrate me more, but that’s what makes her unique. Looking back I’ve come to realize Evie has always been the glue that connects my family. She packages enough life in that little body that any small piece of her heart we absorb when we’re all together is truly all we need to be whole. That’s how powerful my baby sister, our Evie is. For me, for my family, Evie will always be. Evie is, and never was. This is why the grief of this indescribable loss will live forever, but won’t be in vain. This is why I write in the present tense. She is alive in us, for she has given us everything and taken nothing. We will never let go, for that is true love. For all that she has taught us, she lives through us forever.