Almost everyone calls me EBC and that’s because of my older sister Alexis, Alex is what we call her (well, Girlie is what we call her now). Her initials are ABC, which is notably cooler than my EBC, but it still stuck, thank god. All our lives, since the first year we went to soccer camp and had to write our initials on our soccer balls, it’s been ABC and EBC.
It’s been six months today since ABC passed away after over three years of battling gynecological cancer.
The most obvious thing about my sister, aside from her stunning natural beauty, was that she was extremely cool. She and her world seemed unattainable – working in Soho as an executive producer at a sound design company, getting invited to after parties with people she’d dreamed to meet, traveling around the world. She was just so cool. That’s one thing I’ve kept hearing over the past few months, both from her friends and from my family as well as people that barely knew her at all – how cool she was, how people wanted to be her friend and get to know her the second they met her. As we were walking through Soho to the New York City celebration of life my dad said — “not only did she live in the coolest neighborhood, she also worked in the coolest neighborhood. It’s like cool just followed her.” And it did. From all the knick-knacks in her apartment that she collected over the years that now grace the walls and shelves of mine, the detailed flower vase tattoo on her left forearm, her ability to sing and dance and play guitar and be athletic for as long as I could remember, and the countless number of wonderful friends she has, it was all just cool.
Speaking of friends, I was always shocked by the number of close friends my sister has, but in a way not shocked at all. It seemed as if every time we spoke on the phone there was a new bestie in the mix that I would get to know through her, and she raved about her friends nonstop. Girlie has friends on every continent except Antarctica, and even that one I could be wrong about. But every single person she has considered a friend is just as caring, kind, funny, and wonderful as she is. They have welcomed me into their lives and friend group without hesitation and as if I belonged there the whole time. We share memories of her, laugh and cry together, and carry on traditions with one another. We’re throwing her a birthday party in a couple weeks, because she would want us to. She would want us to be together, listen to her favorite music, dance, eat her favorite cake, talk about her, maybe shed one tear each and literally just one and then get back to dancing your asses off. And we will.
There are so many things I crave her opinion on more than anyone else’s — new clothes I get, the guys I’ve been dating, the new Taylor Swift album and all the wild theories the Swifties come up with (I tend to believe them all and she tended to bring me back to Earth). But another reason I am so grateful to have her friends in my life — each time I talk to them and get their opinion it’s like I’m getting a small reflection of her through them, and I hope I do the same in return.
One of Girlie’s best talents was gift-giving. I don’t know if I would even call it a talent, it was more like a gift of her own. She could find the perfect present for anyone, gag gift or serious, for any occasion. I remember feeling silly for sending her wish lists for my birthdays or Christmas because I knew she would show up with an abundance of perfect gifts I didn’t even know I had been wanting.
Another of her talents and something her friends and I have all talked about being jealous of, was her style, and her eye for finding the perfect pieces. The girl could take seemingly the most random articles of clothing and put them together to make an outfit no one else could pull off but that she absolutely slayed. She also bought clothes unconventionally. I was with one of her best friends a couple weeks ago who she had also lived with for a while who said, “ABC didn’t even buy clothes because she was imagining them on herself. She bought clothes she thought were beautiful and then would keep them until she found someone to give them to or posted them on her Depop to sell. I loved that about her.” She was always looking for beauty in things. One of the art pieces that hung on her wall for years was an abstract piece she found on the side of the road and thought would look nice in her living room. She left a list on her phone, “people who get clothes.” Everyone got exactly what they wanted without ever having told her they wanted it. She just knew everyone in her life so well.
Some more random facts to prove how cool my sister was in case you’re still not sold: In 2014 her favorite band was Blood Orange and in 2014 she met Blood Orange lead singer Devyn Hynes on the street in New York City and he wrote her an eight-count music score named “Alex’s Song.” When she worked as an intern in the office of Adele’s manager, A$AP Rocky came into her office and they talked about their zodiac sign – he later saw her on the street and gave her a hug because he remembered her. She spent a total of one month in Europe traveling completely alone throughout her life, but more impressively went on a three-week trip around Europe this summer after being diagnosed with lung metastases. She went backstage at Saturday Night Live and a famous actor kept asking her to go to karaoke. She summited Mt. Rainer at age sixteen. A famous rapper swiped up on an Instagram story posted of her and said “who’s that, she’s cute.” Multiple times.
I have to remind myself that she’s gone almost every morning. It feels like such an abstract thought, like it can’t be real. Sometimes I feel like I’m shoving her death down peoples throat when I post pictures of her often, but I’ve realized that I think I have a need to make sure she stays alive in people’s minds. The fact that her birthday is coming up but her friends and I will celebrate without her, the fact that every time I call her phone it doesn’t so much as ring before the automated “the number you have dialed cannot be reached” message stabs me in the heart again. The fact that I can scroll through trails and trails of my own green texts to her, none with a a response. One of the saddest things to grasp is that all that is left of her, is all that is left. The pictures we have are the only ones we will have, and even though there thousands there will never be enough. We’ll never get new ones. I remind myself of her voice by listening to voice memos or videos of her, but I will never hear it in real life, in real time.
But what I will do is this: I will wear her clothes. I will spend time with her friends. I will continue the trail of green texts to her. I will travel to places she has been and places she hasn’t. I will talk about her often with people who did and did not know her. I will listen to her favorite music and her favorite artists’ new music. I will write down stories from my memories. I will watch every sunset and sunrise with her in mind. I will love life and the world. I will do everything I can to keep her with me.
Throughout the three years she fought cancer and down to her final days, Alex’s spirit was still intact, beautiful and glowing as ever. She loved life and the world more than anyone I have ever known. Rather than retreating into fear and sadness when she learned her illness would take her life, she embraced life even more. She traveled, spent time with friends all over the country, she did whatever she wanted to do while she could. She still showed up for everyone in her life the same way as before if not more and was able to make sweet lemonade with every sour lemon life handed her. In her last week, the way her eyes widened and lit up when she would look at one of us, her stubbornness even as she lay bedridden, her sassy one-word responses, they were all still parts of her.
I will never know a stronger love or bond than the one we shared, and I am so grateful for the time we had together. It was the biggest privilege I will ever have to be her little sister. The way I have been told she would talk about me to her friends, the screenshots of things I have posted on social media over the years on her phone, the loving texts I’ve seen about me in her phone. I wish I had been better to her, but I know she knows how much love was shared between the two of us. It was and is more than either of us will have ever had. Growing up we’d ask my parents if we could have a sleepover, which really just meant me sleeping in her bed with her. On long road trips she always wanted us to sync up our music, listening to the same songs but in our own pairs of headphones. Mom and Dad were always shushing us in hotel rooms because we’d be giggling under the blankets when it was time for bed. Yes we fought and bickered, but what I think about now is how much fun she made everything, how people would smile at us when they heard our simultaneous laughs, and how much love and generosity she showed me, down to the last day she was here.
A life with love is a life that’s been lived.