Most people who know me probably notice that I’m a pretty quiet person who usually has a smile on his face. The story behind that is what most don’t know. My family is much like others, but at times very different. I have two sisters and a brother. My oldest sister, Ashley, suffered a trauma at birth, and it damaged her brain. She started having seizures the day after she was born, and has had them daily for 19 years. I have a bond with my sister greater than what most people have even with their best of friends.

For Ashley’s senior year at NPHS, Student Council invited her to be the featured guest at their annual Make a Wish 5K run on March 18. Ashley was very excited to go and spend some time with the rest of our family. Our mom decorated her wheelchair with flashing lights and my sister loved. Every time they came by my sister would look up at me and smile at me as I cheered them on.

Sometimes my smile is a shield I use to protect me. It always tears me apart inside to see her sad, and I’m always worried that at some point I might get the news that I won’t see that amazing smile again, so I always try to smile through the pain so I can always see her with a smile. Even on the worst days when nothing is going right, if I get to see her smile, it makes the day a great one.

A few years later, the seizures started getting bad again. Most of her seizures were now sleep related. She’d have several a night. She also started having grand mal seizures where she would stop breathing. We were driving to Ashley’s favorite place, Disney World, when she dozed off in the car. Ashley stopped breathing when she had a grand mal seizure, She looked right at me while she quit breathing, and I felt like that was the last time I’d see my best friend’s eyes. My dad grabbed Ashley out of the car gave her some CPR breaths on the ground. It was terrifying! My sister started breathing again and an ambulance took her to the hospital. I was in the back seat in tears, trying to keep my little siblings and myself calm. I will never forget that day. Every second felt like an eternity, it was like the entire weight of the world was sitting on my chest. Just sitting there, waiting for what seemed a lifetime to see my wonderful sister’s amazing smile again.
Ashley got to where the grand mal seizures that would stop her breathing were happening more often. This past year, in January 2016, my sister had three more brain surgeries. One was to open her skull and place an EEG grid on her brain. Four days later, she had surgery to disconnect and remove any leftover tissue on the left side of her brain. This was again an attempt to stop the seizures. And again, it didn’t work. She went a while without any, and I remember my dad calling the hotel where my mom and us kids were staying one night. He called to say that Ashley had just had another seizure. Mom cried and took off back to the hospital. I stayed in the room to watch my younger brother and sister. As my little siblings slowly went back to bed, I stayed up with my head in my hands just wondering one thing: Why her? I was up crying until my mom finally got back. I could tell it was going to be another sleepless night. I wish I could say the seizures have ceased, but they haven’t. I’ve watched what I thought was Ashley’s last moments so many times, I can’t even count them. The one thing I can count on is, her smile. In her nearly two decades of life, Ashley’s had four brain surgeries to try to stop her seizures. They haven’t. It’s devastating each time they return. It has been a long, hard past year for us as a family, but it has brought us so much closer.

I turned 16 in September, and Ashley was so excited to finally get to go for a ride with me, just the two of us. She and I have a nightly ritual of taking a drive to go get her an iced tea at Runza. She’s always reminding me it’s tea time. As we drive around, she plugs her iPad in and we blare the most random music and jam out to it. Ashley has started getting really excited for her graduation, and especially her graduation party! She says that I am the one who has to help her with the party. Of course, I would would do anything for her.

We’ve started talking about the day I have to leave for college, and how we worry about how hard it’ll be for Ashley. I am thinking it’ll be so hard for her, but I am sure she will find a way to be strong and keep that smile in her face. It might be me who has the harder adjustment. I won’t know what to do without our nightly tea runs, her always picking on me, always trying to blame me for stuff, and just being there for me whenever I was in need. I only wish I could always be there for her when needs me. Since day one, she’s been the Pooh to my Piglet, the Tinker Bell to my Peter Pan. She has taught me what’s really important in life. She’s taught me to enjoy the little things even if the the future is gray.