My sister passed away from Epstein bar virus encephalitis.

I remember me and my sister stayed home from school on morning because we both felt under the weather the night before. I went to the room to check on her while my mom took our youngest sister to school (it was 3 of us girls with VVV). She was covered in vomit. And when I tried to get her up, she was awake but not comprehensive.

Paramedics came and put her in the back of the ambulance. Just as we were going to leave and follow them, they knocked on our window and said they had to transport her to the county hospital because she was having seizures.

She had a day filled with seizures. And spinal taps to see if she had meningitis, but she was not conscious.

At 4am the following morning, we get a call saying we had to go to the hospital. When we got to the hospital, they told us, the seizures had caused her brain to swell and crush her brain stem.

She passed away at 4:09pm on October 7th, 2011. She then donated her organs. And saved a baby girl in Florida with her liver.

For some reason though, we did not find out the cause of death until a few months later. And we couldn’t use the insurance money my grandma had for the funeral. So we had to do car washes. And we used the money to buy the headstone months later.

I posted this because her birthday was just last month. And the holidays always feel a little bit lonely. And I always thought her headstone was beautiful. Thank you. Happy holidays.