A day came when my clothes no longer fit my sister, and it broke my heart.

Being the oldest meant a lot of things. It meant bed time stories and piggy-back rides and baby photo-shoots years before she was even conceived. It meant top of the bunk-bed, it meant passenger seat, it meant harder homework. And being the oldest also came with the job of once a year, cleaning out my closet, and passing down to Moira what no longer fit me.

For years, this ritual existed. Her wardrobe was an endlessly growing combination of new, and recycled; our relationship may have been by blood, but it was strengthened with cotton fibers and polyester fabrics. We had the same curly brown hair, we had the same thick, shapely eyebrows, and we had, though I suppose it was forced, the same fashion sense. These were sister things; these were best friend things. These were truths which I thought all siblings of the same sex lived by, and I took my small collection of things which, in my mind, connected us, very seriously.

But one day, Moira went to try on a pair of pants I had tossed aside, only to return to my room a few minutes later with the jeans folded up. They didn’t fit? She shrugged, and nodded that they did not. Too short? They were. A little baggy? That too. A summer or so later and she returned home from summer camp with her hair cut and shaved. Her curls hung in ringlets on the right side, leaving the left side bare and cropped closely to the skull. “Tennis-ball fuzz” I jokingly called it, stroking the shaved side like one might do with a puppy. Our clothes were not interchangeable, and our hair was no longer indistinguishable.

She curled her eyelashes and moisturized her skin and wore lipstick about a quarter of the time she went out. She learned guitar, and wore crop tops, and was placed into honors-level math. For all this I was proud; but she didn’t fit my old shirts or jeans, and we weren’t matching, and she was old enough to sit in the passenger seat without even having to ask, and part of me had a hard time coping with the fact that my baby sister was no longer so little.

I do not live with my sister anymore. But, walking to my 11am or my 2pm classes, the sun shining over Harvard Yard, I see families with babies, and toddlers, and preteens. I see twins in matching sweaters chase squirrels past the statue of John Harvard, and I watch sixteen-year-old girls take snapchat selfies in front of Weld dorm.

It occurs to me that some college student might somehow see my sister: walking around town with friends, laughing about some joke somebody told her, her eyes rolling at something she overheard during lunch, playing guitar, the wind gently brushing against that beautiful face of hers. It occurs to me that they might see her, and be reminded of their own little sister -- like I am when I see the tourists. I hope they think like I do, that she is beautiful, and that she looks loving; someone you would want to hug, someone whose approval you might crave.

And so Moira, I am sorry I’m not there for your first high school midterm, or your first homecoming dance. I apologize I can’t sit down with you to go over Spanish homework, or to watch T.V together, or that I’m not there to lie on our bedroom floor laughing with you over the dumb jokes and silly voices we always make. But I hope that whoever sees you, whatever middle aged woman or teenage girl or toddler catches glimpse of you in the grocery store, or the bike shop, or you high school campus, I hope they see that radiant glow you have.

I hope they have to squint in the presence of all your brightness and your shine and your beauty; because you may not wear my old jeans anymore, and your hair might not be long like it used to, and you might not leave your skin untouched, but you still have that magnificent glow. I know. I can see it shinning here, all the way up in Massachusetts.

Your glow has no trouble transcending the 182 miles between us, and neither, I hope, does my love for you.