Letter from a Sister | PeonyMagazine

2. Dear Autumn, You always arrive with your arms full of reminders: rust-colored leaves at my feet, a sharper wind against my cheek, the way daylight pulls away earlier as if urging me to slow down. Every September, you find me reflecting on the seasons of my life, and this year, you’ve brought me back to my sister. When we were children, we treated you like a holiday, Autumn. We argued over who might claim the most beautiful orange leaf, crunched through your leaves, and challenged one another to jump into piles as though the world were ours to fall through. Daring, fearless, wicked, and sticky from caramel apples, my sister’s hand was always in mine. Back then, our disagreements were brief, our secrets were whispered into pillows and kept behind bedroom doors, and we were entangled like vines. But like your trees, we changed. Time stretched us thin, and adulthood scattered us the way the wind scatters leaves across an empty street. Now, when I think of her, I see us as two trees rooted in the same soil but growing in different directions. Sometimes our branches brush against each other in the breeze, sometimes they don’t.

3. I wonder, Autumn, how bonds shift so quietly. There wasn’t one day we stopped being each other’s shadow. Instead, it was a thousand tiny moments: jobs in different cities, missed phone calls, weddings, children, illnesses, all the life that rushed in and built walls between us without our noticing. And yet, the thread between us still tugs. A photo will surface, or a memory will slip into my chest, and there she is again, my sister, as if she’s only down the hall. I never say it out loud, but I pray for her, Autumn. On the days when life can be cruel, I pray that it is gentle. I hope she recalls that there is someone out there who can still hear her giggle in the dark when she feels lonely. Sometimes, I pray with the stubbornness of a child, as if I could bargain with the universe to keep her safe, like when we were small and I promised her monsters couldn’t reach us if she held my hand. Do you remember that, Autumn? How do sisters invent their own mythology? We built forts out of blankets and swore no danger could pass through the cloth. We gave each other bruises with rough games, but defended each other fiercely at school. We cried over boys, over parents, over nothing at all, and still ended up curled beside each other, sharing headphones, one song splitting into two ears. That’s what you’ve always been to me: the season of shared warmth against the growing chill.

4. Our obligations no longer intersect like homework did in the past, and we now live farther apart. Days may go by before we speak to each other. However, I’ve discovered that love doesn’t die in silence, Autumn. Like your leaves, it merely waits for the right gust to release them. Even though the calendar feels heavier than the closeness we once shared, she is still mine, and she is still my sister. You teach me, Autumn, that change isn’t the same as losing. A leaf doesn’t grieve when it fades from green to gold. It simply glows differently before it lets go. That is what sisterhood feels like to me. Sometimes we hold on, sometimes we drift apart, but underneath it all, the roots are still there, steady and hidden, tying us together no matter the distance. If I could, I’d tell her this: that no matter how far apart we grow, she is stitched into my seasons. When I see you burn gold across the trees, I think of her hair catching sunlight in childhood. When your winds rush past me, I hear her voice, quick and sure, telling me to keep up. When your nights fall early and the world feels too heavy, I remember her beside me under one quilt, whispering secrets we never told anyone else.

5. And maybe that’s the truth of it, Autumn. You are proof that beauty doesn’t last by staying the same. It lasts by becoming, by allowing space, by letting things transform. I don’t need us to go back to what we were as children. I need us to keep becoming two sisters, two women, continually learning how to love each other in the season we’re given. So, thank you, Autumn, for reminding me not to grieve the distance but to honor the thread that still pulls between us. You are the golden light that makes me pause, the hush that teaches me how to remember, the season that tells me love is not lost, only reshaped. With gratitude and hope, A Sister This piece is part of our September Special Issue: Letters in Autumn. Every week, we release a new letter written from a different perspective. Return here to follow the full series.

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