This was a piece that Nia wrote for her final when she was at Yale. A sister shouldn’t feel like this, hating her brother because he got more attention than she did. He was ill, he needed more attention. But still, it didn’t change how I felt. I always used to associate getting attention with something bad happening and used to wish something would happen to me, like I would break an arm or a leg, just to feel as if my parents loved me. It used to depress me how people seemed to care about him more, when anyone phoned, they asked after him but not me. So it always had been…so it seemed to me. Steadily my moods got darker and my depression deepened. I took it out on myself and never told anyone. I bottled it all up, it was better that way, it saved being called selfish, this way only I could accuse myself of that. And I did. The accusations, guilt and depression built up slowly, some days more than others. With it, my brothers health faultered. It’s a known fact that CF patients rarely make it to adulthood. That’s what he has, cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that claims the lives of more children than people know. It takes hold of the lungs, preventing them the ability to function properly as well as their digestive system refusing to digest anything they eat. For his birthday, my brother spent it in bed, on oxygen, too ill to cut his birthday cake. He could hardly keep his eyes open. My parents, wrought with worry blocked me out, leaving me feeling more alone than ever. I felt angry and pitied myself. When I eventually went to see my brother and saw him lying in bed, needing a machine to help him breathe my heart broke. Everyone believed he was going to die, and he believed it himself. Seeing him so vulnerable was the biggest wake up call I’ve ever received. I knew then that I had to be there for him, he was only young and shouldn’t have to face death yet, he had so much more of life to live. I put my self loathing aside and concentrated on helping him get better. He went into hospital for two weeks over the Christmas time and for those two weeks I visited him every day and saw him grow strong. When my initial worry had subsided I realised in that time that I didn’t hate my brother, I never had, I loved him. We grew close as I helped nurse him back to health, I was his best friend and he was mine. I forgot my problems; they disappeared when he got stronger. And for the first time in as long as I could remember. I smiled.