One of the biggest responsibilities that some of us are granted in life is that of being responsible for your younger siblings. Sometimes that responsibility comes in the way of changing diapers and sometimes it comes in the way of doing everything in your power to save their life. This is a story that deals with a woman who has a little sister Lily that is a firecracker to say the least. And for her thesis project her sophomore year of college she decides she is going to do what she has always loved to do, focus on those who are experiencing being unhoused and less financially fruitful. She does this by going to a small country that she has never been to before and living amongst the locals. Lily has dreams of becoming a social worker that specifically works in educating unhoused people in an effort for them to gain the education that a lot of people take for granted. It is after she misses a check in with her family that her sister begins to worry. It doesn't take long for the family to realize that Lily, the dreamer, the most passionate person in their family, is not only missing but missing in another country. They do everything in their power to bring her back home but quickly realize that there is not much they can do when they are outside of a justice system that they recognize like that of America. Unfortunately, Lily never returns home and her dreams die with her passion. Her sister then makes it her mission to ensure that any other dreamer or citizen of this country has the ability to travel to another country and feel some level of security. In the end, many years have passed since Lily was taken but her memory will always live in the creation of Lily’s Law.
Rest Well, Sweet Lily
For my 18th birthday instead of the off roading SUV I thought I was going to get my parents surprised me with a little sister. For the life of me I could not understand or even wrap my mind around the idea of accidentally having a child 18 years after you had your first. I always joked with them that they could taste their empty nest-ness and then with one simple pregnancy test that taste was replaced with morning sickness and breast milk. My parents saw it as a gift. They weren't exactly sure why they were chosen to be the recipients of this gift but nonetheless they knew in their hearts my sister Lily was created out of love and they would give her nothing but love, which is exactly what they did for me. I understood them, we were speaking the same language. Once I knew her birth was not going to affect my college fund, I immediately loved her, I’, joking. Unfortunately, because of school I had to love her from a distance but the older she got the more in love with her I was to a point where it felt like she wasn't my little sister but she was my first experience at parenthood. Always interesting how you're driving down this freeway of life and in the blink of an eye, the snap of a finger, one bad decision changes the course of your life. That's all it took, one bad decision.