My son died saving his little sister.
On her eighteenth birthday, he kept a promise he’d made before he died—
that he would be there—
carried across eighteen years by the heart he gave a stranger,
pressed under her hand in our living room,
still beating, still his, still keeping the word of an eighteen-year-old boy
who planned, with his last clear thoughts, how to love his sister past his own grave.
Happy birthday, little sister.
I promised I’d be here.
He was.
He always will be—
in a heart that never stopped,
in a family built from his goodbye,
in a sister who saves lives because her brother saved hers,
