I’ve been in a slew of bad relationships and situations. The events have varied: the slick quarterback that cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend; quitting my meager drive-thru job with the hopes of obtaining a big girl career (never happened); the almost-fiancé that, after four years, still loved Evan Williams more than me.

I’m not asking for sympathy – I put myself in these places time and time again. Like a moth to a flame.

However, the only thing that remained consistent is my best friend, my second half, my heart and soul: my little sister, Maria.

Maria is three years younger than me and responded with eye rolls in high school, “Yes, I’m the little sister.” We were polar opposites. While she planned her presidency for clubs at school, I planned how to haul kegs through the woods. She would be asleep by 8 PM for volleyball practice in the morning, and I would sneak out the windows to roam through the night.

We never hung out and, more importantly, we never talked. She was embarrassed by my antics, and I was embarrassed I wasn’t a better sister. She opened up to me ever-so-slightly last summer. “You think you could dye a little strip of my hair purple? I can’t reach.” So Maria and I both had strips of periwinkle in our hair for the summer of 2015. That is, until, she landed her big girl internship at Disney.

“Christina, they made me dye it back! It’s not in the dress code!” Months later, once she was home, she would look at me and say, “You wanna get sister tattoos?” The one thing she never wanted, and now she wanted to get one with me, of all people.

 We both carry keyblades (yes, those keyblades) fashioned in the shape of our childhood home house keys with each other’s initial.

I was forgiven. Somehow, and I am still very unsure how this unfolded, but Maria and I now live together in Athens. We both attend The University of Georgia and haven’t killed each other yet. Maria will casually have a glass of wine with dinner, and I’ll rush home to finish homework before passing out during the nightly news.

Our high school fights of playing music too loudly have morphed to cuddling on the couch, watching the newest Good Mythical Morning episode or, yes, playing Kingdom Hearts.

She student teaches, volunteers at churches, helps with Relay for Life, plans events for the community…and asks me to help now. Do you think you could take pictures at this event? Do you want to drive around and put out collection canisters? Do you want to just go have a beer? It’s hard to see past the awkward teenage stage. If you asked me ten years ago if Maria and I could live harmoniously under one roof without parental referees, I’d think you were kidding.

But, here we are, almost a year living together. No fights. No screaming. An occasional prank or two, but nothing too damaging.

The fact is this: all relationships are difficult, dating or otherwise, but the people that you should keep on your team are the same ones you wanted to pick last in neighborhood kickball tournaments.

The same ones you kicked out of your tree fort for spying; the same ones who, after years of self-hatred and destruction, pick you up, dust you off, and love you anyway.   Maria, you remain everything to me. I am so proud to call you my sister.

There are some people that are put into your life that are meant to change the path of your existence forever. For me, that person was my grandmother.

Ever since I can remember, going to my grandmother’s house was always such a special treat, even though she only lived about an hour plus some change away in Toccoa, Georgia and we went to visit pretty frequently when I was a child. Toccoa is a super small town: in 2000, the population was 9,323 people. In a place like that, everything seems charming and traditional and somehow just right (and I was thinking that even when I was tiny).

My grandmother seemed to know everyone in the town, and always treated people she knew and had just met with the exact same kindness.

She was the funniest, most thoughtful, most beautiful woman I could have ever wanted to have in my life: so when she passed away in 2014, I was absolutely devastated, and I couldn’t really come to terms with it. She had just been driving a few months prior!

My grandmother was 91 when she passed away, and now that I look back on it, I think that it was so hard for me to accept that she had died because she had been alive for so long and had so many great stories to tell and had touched so many lives that she seemed like an immortal being.

Ultimately, my grandmother passed away from cancer, and this led to my involvement with Relay for Life. My grandma was always very big on philanthropy and doing everything she could to change the world, so I joined with the mentality that she would have loved everything that Relay stood for.

But now that I am into my second semester of Relay, I can now say that I have found a family here.

My committee is only women, and they all feel like the sisters I never had. It’s amazing to think that every single one of us in that group has been touched by cancer either directly or indirectly, and that we all joined with the intent on spreading the word about standing up to cancer and helping in any way that we can to make other people’s lives that have been affected better.

I’m writing about my grandmother’s death as an important moment in my life because through a negative experience, I was able to learn about the positive ways to help people who are struggling with the illness of a loved one, regardless of if the loved one has cancer or not.

Because of my grandmother, I’ve learned that kindness and love are often both the best forms of medicine, and I hope that I am able to spread both through my involvement with Relay for Life.

(Written by Tess Renfro)

The two ran, hand-in-hand, as the lights began to fade behind them. Their backs glowed as their shadows cast among the reedgrass in front of them.

Silence. The groans of the town had faded. The blaring car horns were lost in the sound of the dry grass grazing their legs as they ran. For miles, all that could be seen was reedgrass as tall as their hips or shoulders, stretching across the hills.

The familiar tree stood proudly on the edge of a hill; its branches sprawled in every direction, twisting and intertwining together.

Ava and Anna bounded towards the trunk with the beat of their footsteps cheering and motivating as drums. As they finally reached the roots of the tree, they collapsed to the ground. There, they lay panting; chests rising and falling, until their breath evened out and matched the serenity of the beautiful world around them.

“Let’s keep going!” Ava’s eyes beamed up at her older sister in expectation and hope. She was far too young to understand that life had so little to bring; her mind was just too full of hope and adventure.

Ava often dreamt of holding Anna’s hand as they ran through the hills. But instead of stopping at their tree, they continued to run. Past the dunes and the signs that lead them back home, through the fence that had entrapped them for so long, and to the edge of the world, wherever their feet would allow them to go.

Sometimes Ava would dream of a huge lake, with fish and lily pads, and the promise of change.

In darker times, she would dream of a long road, cracked and battered, and no matter how far the two of them walked, the road always led them back home.

“We can’t.” Anna said, running her fingers through Ava’s curly red hair. She began to hum Ava’s favorite lullaby, the same one their mother would rock them to sleep with.

“If I ran, would you come with me?”

“Don’t be stupid” Anna mumbled. Tears began to pool under her eyes as she spoke. “You need to understand that there’s nothing out there for us, Ava. If you ran, I wouldn’t follow you. I know you’re curious, but when you grow up you’ll understand. All we have left is each other. There’s nothing out there.”

The silence became unbearably deafening, and Ava decided to run. However it was no longer in spite of what had restricted her, it was the security of knowing that Anna would indeed be running behind her as she went. She heard Anna screaming her name as she chased her up and down the valleys, and to the wooden fence they had never dared to cross.

Ava waited for Anna to come, and by the time she caught up, she was sobbing. Her ragged green dress was stained with dirt and splattered in tears.

“If you go, I’m not following you Ava.”

“Come on!” Ava bent over and climbed through the space between the wooden planks. She didn’t turn around as she kept walking, in hopes that Anna had jumped the fence and would soon clench her hand as they walked together.

She could hear Anna’s sobs as she continued down the hill, but Ava never looked back.

She had walked about a mile until she saw the edge of the trees. They seemed to call her name as the occasional breeze came and went, and ruffled the branches in a dance of expectation.

She had never seen woods like these. When she began to immerse herself in the trees, for the first time ever she felt scared. The leaves and branches beneath her cracked as she stepped, while she watched many more leaves fall from the towering trees above.

The darkness of dusk crept, and began to fill the woods with dim moonlight. Ava started to hear more; a frog croaking, a twig breaking, an owl calling. She saw a deer grazing by a dogwood tree in front of her, and as she took another step forward, the deer cocked it’s head and stared at her.

The sound of the shot was deafening. Her ears rang as the woods spun around her, and she watched the deer dash away; dancing between the trees as if on stage.
She hadn’t seen the hunter, he had been aiming for the doe that escaped death.

She collapsed to the ground and watched the stars and trees that hovered above her twist and spin like a merry-go-round. She clasped her hands to her stomach and felt her blood begin to pool around her.

She closed her eyes and pictured herself floating in the lake she so often dreamed of. She imagined Anna floating next to her, humming their mother’s lullaby and reaching for her hand.
“Let’s keep going” Ava whispered, and the world fell silent.