When you have only one sister, and when that sister is just one year apart from you, you often grow up with a simple truth: you were never meant to be alone. You feel that life placed you side by side with gentleness, almost as if you were a gift crafted for each other.

This text is for her. To honor the day she was born, to celebrate that blessed moment when the world welcomed not just a human being, but someone deeply dear to me, my sister, my flesh. This is for her.

My dear sister,

You are the one I think of when I think of my life.
The one who comes to mind when I remember the town of our childhood,
The one I see again when I recall the edge of my adolescence,
The one I imagine even today,
And on every fifth of December, without fail.

To you, my sister, the only one who has known me always.
To you, the only one who gave me
The sweetest memories of my early days.
To you, who played a thousand tricks on me,
Some harsh, some tender but always sisterly.

To you, my eternal sister,
My friend whose love and tempers
Coexisted without ever breeding hatred.
It is you I disappointed the most,
Because it is from you that I received the most.

It is you I spoke to the most,
Because you were the one who called me the most.
And it is you I hurt the most,
Because you allowed me to come close to you,bare, vulnerable
With a trust I have never forgotten.

Thank you for the gift of being my sister,
For this celestial bond in two earthly bodies.
Thank you for never trying to be perfect;
In our life, nothing is to be redone differently.

Thank you for our healthy anger,
For the wounds we dared to name,
For the words we placed on them like healing balms.
Thank you for being the temple of my secrets,
The keeper of my childhood,
The living proof that we have grown.

I owe you life, this life full of madness,
Of false hopes, of illusions,
But in which you remain true.
True, imperfect, standing, moving forward.

And it is by your side that I still walk,
Even when limping, without fear of falling,
For I would fall far lower if you had never existed.

Happy blessed birthday,
My dear sister,
Long my sister-friend.

Written by Aliane UMUTONIWASE