There are certain people in your life who you cannot imagine living without. For me, that person is my sister.

In the wee hours of a chilly February morning, more than two decades ago, I was born in a small town in India. You would think that my fiercest protector and source of unconditional love, my sister, would be oo-ing and ahh-ing over me. Well…let’s just say my sister was preparing me for the harsh realities of the world. 

My sister, a recently appointed big sister at the mere age of two and a half years old, pushed me aside and climbed into bed with our Aie, which means mom in Marathi, and promptly fell asleep. I, the newborn, was left with my maternal grandmother to find rest. And yet, even after being tossed aside like a sack of potatoes, I fell completely and utterly in love with my older sister. 

Perhaps, unlike in the movies, it is not only the older sibling that fawns over the youngest but the opposite too, with the youngest being left in awe at the extraordinary individual they get to claim as their own. 

As a child, I would scoot my butt and later walk wherever my sister went, which often wasn’t very far. You see, my sister liked to play with all the toys that were only within reach of her short pudgy arms. I couldn’t be more different. I loved to open cabinets, touch objects inside of glass showcases and explore anywhere my feet could carry me to. My young, brilliant mind could simply not comprehend why the adults in the room were trying to stop me from touching things. 

Still, my sister without a complaint in the world would take me and my grabby hands everywhere. There was no playdate or hangout I couldn’t tag along with her. Many of my friends would lament over their younger siblings stealing their clothes or trailing behind them, but my sister never did. She never once made me feel like a burden. 

When our parents would tuck us into bed, saddled with blankets wrapped in their love and warmth, it was her tiny, slightly sweaty hand that would poke out and clasp mine, knowing without words that I couldn’t fall asleep. She ensured I would never feel alone in our big and sometimes frightening world. 

As we grew older and transitioned from playing with Barbies together to talking for hours, I started to shift from calling her Vaidehee to Didi, the Hindi word for sister. 

It is one of my favourite words in my entire vocabulary. It holds the soft warmth of her smile and encompasses her loud, boisterous, throw-your-head-back kind of laugh. It’s the first word I would scream when I would fall on the playground and scrape my knee, and the name I now whisper when it’s hard to see the light. It holds the strength that I lean on, knowing her shoulders were built from the challenges a first-generation immigrant daughter faces. It is a name that belongs to someone that I know I can’t bullshit my way through answering to. 

“Didi,” I laugh as she tickles me till I can’t breathe.

“Didi,” I roll my eyes at her embarrassing antics as she tries to make me smile after I am upset.  

“Didi,” I cry as I wave goodbye through the glass windows at the Saskatoon airport. 

“Didi,” I yell, frustrated and angry. 

“Didi,” the unspoken apology when we have both said something we regret and are feeling heavy with the knowledge that those words can never be taken back.

But “Didi” is always said with the love that makes up the unbreakable bond we share. 

A mere two years and five months separate us in age, but I have often felt as if we are the same age, as if a piece of myself resides inside my Didi. She is my soulmate through and through. 

There is absolutely no one in this world who has done for me what she has done. No one else has lost friendships because of my annoying younger self. No one else has planted themselves like a tree against anyone that tried to hurt me. No one else has held their breath as I followed my dreams, feeling the crushing weight of them not being realized and celebrating the wins when they happened as if they were her own. No one else has looked me in the eyes, held my hand and said they loved me, no matter who I was or what I did. When I didn’t know anyone and even now, when I know the world better, my Didi is all I ever needed. 

Didi, you are my best friend, cheerleader, mentor, sister and my everything. Being your little sister is my greatest gift and title. And it’s alright, even though you still haven’t apologized, I forgive you for sleeping with our Aie on my first night earthside.