This is part of a month-long series that my teen daughter and I are writing about her life and learning to live with epilepsy. To start at the beginning, click here.
This post was written by my oldest daughter who wanted to say a few things about Beth.
My name’s Emily, I’m Beth’s sixteen-year-old sister, and she’s my hero. For real. Writing that out sounds kinda weird to me (who wants to admit they look up to their younger sister?!) but it’s completely true. My sister rocks.
For starters, she’s a completely fantastic makeup artist, hair stylist, and personal fashion designer. At least once a week I run to her to verify that my shoes are compatible with my cardigan, only to be told to change. Immediately. But I trust her judgement, because it takes a certain eye to discern between shades of brown and she has it and I definitely do not.
She’s also a genius, and musically talented, and confident, and sassy, all of which I am not. She’s stunning and kind and empathetic and while she reads this she’s gonna laugh and tease me mercilessly, but that’s all okay. Because I don’t tell her this stuff often enough. (She’s also good with discussing feelings, another thing that I’m bad at.)
But most of all, the number-one reason that I look up to Beth so much? She’s insanely brave. There’s this book that she’s had since she was little, Becky the Brave by Laurie Lears, and it’s about a girl named Becky who had epilepsy and is brave and so is her sister Sarah, but the reason I bring it up is because I think it should be called Beth the Brave. My sister has to go to school every day with the knowledge that she has this epilepsy thing, and she (most of the time) carries on as usual. I think that I think epilepsy is a lot worse than it is, but I’ve only ever seen her have one tonic-clonic seizure and it terrified me. Still terrifies me sometimes. I mean, I know her meds work most of the time but I don’t relish the idea of never knowing for sure. Plus she has all the other kinds of seizures too (I don’t even understand those) and she just gets up and goes on with her life. It’s insane. I think I’d crack under the pressure, but not Beth. Beth can do anything.
So there’s that. My sister is three years younger than I, and she’s pretty much the coolest person I know. She’s brave, she’s smart, she’s talented, she’s kind. But don’t tell her I said so, okay? 😉
*If you’d like to read all of our 31 Days posts about living with epilepsy, click on the button on the sidebar or start here. And if you’re wondering what the heck is going on and who Beth is, click here. 🙂
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