This past Tuesday, I received a phone call that I could have never expected. “Hi Grace, we have some really hard news to share,” my friend’s mother said, “Helen died.”

In the last few days, I’ve replayed this conversation in my head over and over, trying to make sense of how my beautiful 27-year-old friend could be gone. It still doesn’t feel real to me, and as I type this and re-read this, I am trying to let it sink in.

Do you believe in love at first sight? I typically don’t, but with Helen it was absolutely true. Helen often told people that we had known each other longer than we had even known our parents. While this is factually incorrect, she is the person I’ve known longest in the world other than my parents, and I think this misbelief shows just how intertwined our stories are. She was one year old, and I was three years old when we met because our parents were a part of the same travel group adopting from China in 1997. I loved her little smile, her plump cheeks, and her soft, silly noises. Even though I was just a toddler, she was my baby.

Throughout our childhood, our families reunited every fall at a culture camp for families with children adopted from China. We saw each other at least once or twice per year at this camp and whenever one of our families traveled to the other state. During the summer after my 3rd grade year, I stayed with her family for a week as Helen and I attended a weeklong Chinese day camp together. I looked forward to these sweet reunions every time, because Helen was more than a friend. She was my little sister. When Helen’s parents adopted from China again and she gained a sister of her own, we vowed that we would still be sisters, too.

Helen tried my patience in ways that only a little sister could. She would bounce on my bladder intentionally when I had to go to the bathroom, finding delight in my writhing facial expressions. I remember one time our families were sharing a meal at a Chinese restaurant. I looked down at my plate of potstickers, which had transformed into small, naked meatballs. And when I looked over at Helen, she sheepishly said, “your dumpling wrappers were crispier than mine!” Another time, our families were at an event at a waterpark with separate adult and child activities. When Helen whispered to me that she was going to leave the group to explore the hotel, she put my tiny brain in a conundrum because I knew I would get in trouble if I left, but I also knew it was my responsibility to protect Helen. Like a dutiful big sister, I followed Helen.

As we grew older, Helen and I had our awkward braces phase at the same time. I read a poem at her bat-mitzvah. I attended her high school graduation party and cheered her on from afar as she graduated college during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic. I was just days away from inviting her to my bachelorette party to celebrate my upcoming wedding. I haven’t and don’t know if I can remove her name on my wedding guest count list.

I am no stranger to death. I’ve written openly about the tragic losses of my grandparents and neighbors who played a pseudo-grandparent role in my life. As difficult as those losses were, they were expected due to age and disease. But Helen is my first loved one of my age who has died. The truth is I’ve never pictured my life without Helen. In adulthood, we continued to see each other once or twice per year (before Covid struck). We weren’t the kind of friends who talked in-depth every week or even every month, but I knew that we were always wishing each other the best and thinking of each other fondly. I also felt certain that we would always be there for all of the major life milestones because we had experienced our first huge life event together. When Helen started expressing interest in critical adoption literature and asking me questions about adoption, I was so excited about the ways that this shared identity and interest could mature our adult relationship and bring us closer together again. I am devastated that I won’t be able to see how her thinking would have continued to evolve and for all the conversations that won’t happen.

In addition to the loss of Helen as a person, there is the secondary loss of what she represented to me as a little sister and the title and the role that comes with that. Helen was the thread of continuity in my life. When China felt distant and unknowable as a child, Helen was my one tangible piece of China from that time that had come with me to the United States. She was living proof that we had an existence before our American one. With her death, I have lost a knower of my history and a piece of myself.

It is my job now to be the keeper of our stories and memories. I so wish that we could have one more day together and one more hug goodbye, but I know that Helen will continue to be with me. In the tiniest of ways, I will think of Helen when my cheek freckles pop out more boldly in the summer, when I douse my eggs with her special concoction of 4 different types of chili crisp, and when I take sunny walks around the lake. I’ll remember her when I see calamari on a restaurant menu, when I glance back at our photos of past times, and when I eat cheesecake, which was the last food we shared together. In large ways too, Helen will be guiding me when I advocate politically for principles of social justice, both here and abroad. She will be with me in my adoption research that she also read and found ways to contribute to. When I look at my fiance’s smiling face, I will remember that she gave him her sisterly stamp of approval the last time I saw her. Living the majority of our lives in separate states, we didn’t always see each other, but I could always feel her love supporting me in my endeavors. And I will continue to hold that in my heart.

Thank you, Helen, for being one of my very first loves, for teaching me patience, for demonstrating bravery during big battles, and for letting me be your sister.