"My first ever memory of my life was when Jo and I were going for a walk in the park and I tripped over. I was crying so loudly, and Jo picked me up and carried me all the way home. That was when I was four, and she has been in my life ever since, there was never a time when Jo wasn't there, I can't remember my life without her.
An age later, she was still holding my hand, and carrying me home if I ever needed it.
She was the best sister to me during high school, she even blew off meeting friends to hang around with me, her dorky little sister.
I remember the day that she told me she wanted to be a police officer. So she went for it.
We went and had a look at the options together, and she became so dedicated, more dedicated than she had ever been before. Policing became her life, so when she graduated, she put so much into it.
Then she got posted to Mount Thomas. We drove in, and we spent the whole day together. We found a special place, and whenever we were here together, we would go there, and whenever we were home again we would go to that same old park and hang out together. And that special place in Mount Thomas was the last place I ever saw her alive. Her spirit will always linger there.
I went overseas six months before she died, and the last time I spoke to her, and heard her beautiful voice was a few days before she died. She thought that everything was going for her, she had a great job, and her and PJ were engaged and planning to have children, they were already naming them. Jo would have been a great mother, she just never got the chance. She was the happiest then, happier than she had ever been before, I know that. I was told they broke up two days before she died, but they both still longed and pined for each other.
I remember the day she died very clearly. I didn't know that she had died, but I felt something really important just leave, disappear from my life. Then Susie, god bless her, I don't know what I would have done without her"

she said while smiling at Susie, who was smiling back, but had tears in her eyes,

"had to somehow come up with the courage to tell me that the most important person in my life was dead. She had to tell me something that not even my own parents could manage to do. I cried and cried, I yelled and screamed,I was so angry with the world, if I could have torn it apart I would have. Then I came to my senses and cancelled my trip and flew back home, not prepared for all the emotional struggles and grief ahead. On the plane I went through stages. I don't know what the person next to me thought was going on, I didn't particularly care. I cried, then I would shake for hours at a time in the foetal position, I would turn white then run to the toilet and throw up what the flight attendant had just shoved down my throat. Then I came back here, back home, and the reality of it all hit me. My family was all there, but she wasn't. Mount Thomas could never be the same without Jo.
Jo always told me that I could do whatever I wanted, and be whoever I wanted to be, but the problem was, I didn't want to do whatever and be whoever. I wanted to be Jo. I never told her how much she meant to me, I should have told her every day, but I think she knew anyway. I should have told her that she was beautiful and loved, like the last thing that she ever said to me.
Then I come up here and have to face speaking at her funeral, and I don't know where I am getting the strength from, but it has to be there. I can't face stepping outside into this harsh world alone. But somehow I have to do it without her.
I wanted to be Jo because I thought that she was perfect. That's why I am trying to think of all the good things, because I want her to be perfect, I want her to be preserved in my mind as perfect, and she won't be if I think of the bad things.
It seems like such a cliché, but we weren't just sisters, we were best friends.
I know you are looking down on all of us here today, and those of us that can't be here, and guiding us with your beautiful hands.
Nothing I say here today will ever seem enough to remember Jo, or really say how great she was, because I will miss her and love her forever, but Joanna Parish, my beautiful sister who never got to show the whole world what she showed to me, admired and loved by everyone, I will forget you never."

As Katie stepped down from the platform, she started bawling, even though she managed to keep a dry eye for the whole speech, and everyone was applauding her.
Then she completely lost track of all time and thought, she lived through he rest of the funeral, but she wouldn't remember it for a little while at least, until her brain knew she was ready to.

The next thing Katie knew, she was standing behind Jo's coffin, but without Jo in it, and putting it in the back of the hirsute. She was bawling like a newborn baby, and she felt like one too. All around her people were crying, and she knew what that loss felt like, because everyone there at the funeral lost Jo.

Then came the hardest part, where she had to talk to all the people who were at the funeral. She couldn't face it, she felt like all she needed was someone's shoulder to cry on, not to talk to people who felt sorry for her.
She had to face meeting all the people Jo knew, from school, the neighbourhood they had grown up together in, all her police academy friends, her riding friends and people from the stables, and all the people who she had worked with over the years, and the people that she had touched in her many years working as a cop. All she wanted to do was collapse and die, but she had to do it, and PJ was right next to her, holding her hand and whispering comforting comments in her ear all the time.
Then they all piled into the cars and drove all the way to the crematorium.

They took out her coffin and put it on the thing, then, as it slid along and the doors opened, revealing a fire, she trembled and shook.

She felt that even though Jo wasn't actually in the coffin, it was like an end of an era, Jo would be gone once it was over, and she couldn't expect to see her on the street or around the corner, like she still did.

And then the coffin disappeared behind closing doors, and she yelled, just one pure, simple word.

"JO"

PJ just grabbed her, and embraced her, calmed her down. She felt the tears trickle down her cheek, and she stayed in PJ's warm embrace until all the rest of the people were gone.

Time had no meaning, it passed without either of them knowing about it.

She let go, and PJ and her were both crying, their faces completely wet and red, she let go of his hands and turned and walked away, not looking back.

It seemed like something out of a movie.

Katie was given some of Jo's ashes, and she was standing in their special place.

She was crying, the wind was blowing through her soft hair, and she was wearing pure black.

"This is the end, beautiful sister" she sobbed.

"No more you and me" she cried as she scattered the ashes over their spot.
But she didn't scatter them all. She kept some of the ashes, just in case, because if she ever needed Jo, she would be close by…

They could be together forever…

The End

Yes, in reading this I have realised how incredibly corny a particular part of it is. But I thought that it was good at the time.

Hope you liked it, despite the total cornyness!

Bye guys, Please review, have fun,

Vera