"My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy."

― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

46

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of my sister's death, I signed a publishing deal for my first book. It turned out that the words I had typed in the thick of the night that I couldn't remember the details of were actually okay. They were my navigation through loss, grief, family, and love. When I read back over the pages in a moment of clarity, I decided to keep going with it. I had no intention of anyone else ever reading it. But with time, I felt that it spoke so much about us that I wanted to share it with Alice, so that I could expose parts of me to her that I couldn't speak aloud as effectively. I never thought it would be appropriate to share beyond that, until Alice told me it was worth pursuing. She thought that at the very least it might help other people, or in the very least be provocative in making them question or change.

I didn't want my family members stripped bare for the world to see, so I worked with an editor to make it appear to be a work of fiction, changed the names and signed the contract under a penname. The one name I didn't change was Rose's. I needed it to still have that connection for it to be real for me and not a superficial venture off the back of my experiences. The publisher also wanted to keep the title. Dear Rose. It didn't concern me what it would lead to; it was simply a cathartic experience to finally have my heart down on paper and to be willing to expose that to whoever picked it up.

We marked her anniversary with a day filled with all of her favorite things. We wore bright colors, played loud music, drank expensive wines, ate ridiculous amounts of food and followed it down with whoopee pies and meringues filled with cream. Ben learned to get his groove on dancing in the living room with Jasper before it was way past his bedtime. The day wasn't forced or overdone; it just felt natural and right. We knew that each year would be different. Some a simple dinner, others a quiet visit alone to sit beside her grave stone and feel even closer to her to have a chat. But I would never let it just pass us by. We would mark the day she left the world with only memories behind her with as much happiness and regard as the day she came into it.

The family was blessed with new life when Alice and Jasper welcomed their son Samuel on April second. I don't think any of us were prepared for how momentous it felt to have reached that day. Especially not Alice, whose tears of joy seemed to carry so much more in them as they streamed down her cheeks when she looked at me over the top of her brand new son lying on her chest. The immediate love I felt for my second nephew assured me that, no matter how big the family grew, or how much loss I had to carry, the heart was big enough and strong enough for all of it.

Continuing our "why wait" philosophy, that May I became Mrs. Edward Cullen. It was a day in which I really, really felt my sister's absence – and yes, admittedly more so than my mom's. I missed her complaining that red wasn't her color, payback for our initial hesitation over her choice of yellow bridesmaid dresses all those years ago. I missed her joyful smile when Ben walked somewhat haphazardly up the aisle as our ring bearer in his miniature suit. I missed her when she should have been dancing around the reception dinner with her husband. I missed her telling me that her baby sister looked beautiful and that I couldn't have said yes to a better man. She would have laughed so much at Emmett as emcee. His humor had always been one of the things that drew her to him, and one of the things I had worried she'd taken with her when she died. I was so grateful to see that still alive in my brother-in-law.

Rose's and Alice's wedding days had actually been two of those rare moments where Renee had seemed more mom-like. While some of it had been a little trite, for the most part, she had smiled, cried, and said the right things at the appropriate times. Because of the age I was when she left us, my relationship had always had more tenuous connections than what she had with my sisters. Still, I liked to imagine that the awkwardness wouldn't have been so present for that day, and she'd say the things I would hope to hear from her to me as she had to them. If that was a dream only allowed to me by her absence, then I would take it. It wasn't like I could imagine it to be any other way.

Out of all of the emotion and wonderful moments from that day, there was one thing I would remember most. As I stepped into the aisle between our family and friends gathered in the garden of the Cullens' home in Forks, my most amazing dad squeezed my arm and gave me a reassuring wink that this moment was going to be great. And when I looked up ahead to what awaited me, it was. I saw the man who would stand by me as I took every step from there on out. And when he graced me with the most beautiful smile, his green eyes glistening with the happiest of tears, I knew that it wasn't the absences I would remember, it was him.