When we were younger, my sister and I used to live at the beach.
We spent our days together down at the rock pools, chasing crabs and discovering new types of starfish.
We built all kinds of different architectures out of the sand and had running races up and down the beach.
That was when I was 7.
Not long after that, Sarah got sick.
At first, my parents thought it was nothing - just a random bug spreading through town, something that everyone could get. Oh, how we were wrong.
Within weeks of the doctors discovering the virus, my sister started deteriorating.
Her averagely built body turned unnaturally skinny from not being able to eat.
Her dazzling blue eyes carried purple bags under them and were sunken in like crater holes.
Her ability to get out of bed vanished almost overnight and her long, blonde hair thinned to almost nothing.
We moved to the city that year.
Sarah was in hospital, bedridden and hooked up to many cords and machines.
She couldn't talk properly and it hurt for her to move.
I remember her writing me a letter once. She described the pain, how she couldn't wait for it all to be over.
She wrote how she couldn't wait to move back to the beach and feel the sand between her toes and smell the salty sea air around her.
I spent all of my free time by her bedside, reading her stories, telling her about school, reminiscing in memories, trying anything to see that rare smile once more - the smile that any normal 15-year-old should wear every day.
But Sarah wasn't normal. She was sick, seriously sick.
Sarah died in the summer, two years after she contracted the disease that took her life.
My family and I packed up our belongings and moved back to the beach.
That was where Sarah was happiest.
I often take long walks across the golden sand, going for hours whenever I need to clear my head.
As I walk, I think of Sarah and what life would be like with her still on this Earth.
I miss laughing with her, yelling at her for stealing my stuff, sneaking me back my cellphone when I was grounded.
I miss the way we used to plait each other's blonde hair and swap socks and paint each other's nails.
I miss everything that normal sisters would do. And I just wish I appreciated everything we did more when she was alive.
And when I hear the soothing, rhythmic sound of the waves crashing on the shore, and I see the last of the sun's glowing rays spilling out over the horizon, I can't help but think that today could be my last day.
That tomorrow, for me, for anyone, could be no more.
• By Talia Purser, Year 12, Blue Mountain College
