THE DAY MY SISTER GRADUATED… AND LOST HERSELF
Life never gave me a warning. Everything changed the day my mother took her last breath. I was still young, but old enough to understand that from that moment on, nothing would ever be the same again. She left behind three of us — me and my two younger siblings — and I quietly became what I never planned to be: a mother before my time.
Not long after the funeral, my father remarried. I still remember the shock in my body when I heard the name of the woman he chose… my mother’s worst enemy. The same woman who used to fight with my mother over things we never fully understood. The same woman my mother didn’t want near our home. Yet somehow, she became my stepmother.
At first, I told myself to be strong. I told myself that maybe people change. I tried to make peace with it because I had no choice. But soon after they got married, my father slowly disconnected from us. He began sleeping out, then eventually he left completely and never returned. It was just us — three children, alone in a house that felt bigger and colder every day.
I had to make the hardest decision of my life: quit school and find a job. I worked whatever job I could get — cleaning houses, packing shelves, babysitting — anything to put food on the table and keep my siblings from feeling the loss the way I did. I sacrificed my dreams so they could at least chase theirs.
My biggest hope was my younger sister. She was smart, focused, and strong. I wanted her education to be her ticket out of the pain we grew up in. Every night after work, I would help her study. Every spare cent I had went to her school fees, books, transport, and lunch.
So when her graduation day finally came, it felt like our celebration — my mother’s dream, my sacrifice, and her hard work all becoming real at once.
But that day also became the day our lives broke open again.
We arrived at the ceremony early. My stepmother was there, dressed like she belonged to us, acting like she had played a part in raising my sister. She walked up to my sister, smiled so warmly it made my stomach twist, and gave her a long hug… and a kiss on the forehead.
My sister froze for a moment, but then she forced a smile. I brushed it off. I told myself not to overthink it.
A few hours later, after she received her diploma, everything changed.
She started acting confused. She was talking to herself. She kept saying her head was burning. Her eyes looked lost, like she was trying to recognize us but couldn’t. By the time we got home, she had completely changed. She was laughing at nothing. Then crying. Then shouting. Then silent. My brilliant little sister… was gone in one day.
And she has never come back.
I took her to churches. Pastors prayed until their voices cracked. I took her to prophets, healers, sangomas, traditional doctors — anyone who said they could help. Nothing worked. Sometimes she gets a little better, but she never returns to who she was before that graduation day.
What keeps me awake at night is how my stepmother looked at her that morning… and the fact that she was my mother’s worst enemy. An enemy who suddenly wanted to hug, kiss and “celebrate” her stepdaughter after years of ignoring us.
Even today, I still don’t understand what happened on that day. I don’t know if it was spiritual, emotional, or something darker — but the timing haunts me.
I continue to take care of my sister and my younger brother. I continue to fight for them, even when life keeps throwing storms at us. I made peace with many things in my life, including my father’s choices. But the one thing I have not made peace with… is losing my sister while she is still alive.
Some days I feel like I lost my mother twice — first through death, and second through the suffering of her child.
And until the day my sister comes back to herself — if she ever will — I will keep telling her the same thing I whispered to her at the graduation:
“We are in this together. I will not leave you.”
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