𝘔 🎗

Yesterday we celebrated Maddie and Lula’s 19th birthday, and I still can’t wrap my head around how fast time has moved. 
          
          My little sisters… aren’t little anymore. One is off chasing her future, the other lives in memories and signs that appear when I need them most.
          
          Lula: you are the most incredible uni student I know. You work so hard, you push through everything life puts in front of you, and you still find a way to brighten every room you walk into. Your life hasn’t been simple or fair, but you’ve never let that stop you. Keep going. Keep dreaming big. Keep proving to yourself  that you’re capable of anything. We’re already so proud of you.
          
          And Maddie… there are no words that don’t ache. I don’t know who you would’ve been today. I don’t know how your laugh, your style, your music taste, your future would’ve unfolded. All I know is that the years I got to be your older brother were warmer, louder, fuller than these last two without you. I miss you in every version of myself. I love you forever and whenever, love you with all my heart, because you loved The Beatles, and you made sure we all heard every lyric.
          
          Thank you for blasting all the WDW songs back-to-back in my playlist yesterday I know it was you. I needed to feel you close.
          
          You twins changed the rhythm of our family the second you arrived. You came in like a force and taught us what it meant to live fully.
          
          To 19 and many more, Lula.
          And Maddie… 16 years will never feel like enough

I’m Lula, I’m never taking over this account I just wanted to pop in here to see Maddie’s space.
          
          She’s immortal here, and I miss my other half.
          
          TPOBAW was her favorite movie, she related to Charlie. Our birthday is coming up soon.

Two years ago, this was the last day I had the pleasure of being your brother.
          
          Thank you for your presence Maddie, we love you eternally.

Many of you only knew Mads through what she chose to share online.
          You knew she loved Why Don’t We, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, K-pop, TØP, and anything that involved music.
          But Maddie was a universe. And here are some of the stars in it that you might not have known:
          
          She danced—and not just with her feet, but with her whole heart.
          She ran track and was fast as lightning. She lived for the wind in her hair and the thrill of racing toward something.
          She wrote poetry, quietly, beautifully.
          She wanted to be a mum more than anything. She adored babies, doted on them, and took care of them like she was born to love that way.
          She was autistic and a savant, accepted into MENSA at eleven years old.
          She spoke seven languages—English, French, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, Spanish, and Sign Language.
          She played tennis from the moment she could walk, and even played one last match just five days before she fell asleep and never woke up.
          
          Maddie was the glue of our family. And without her, we’ve been left cracked and aching.

As we approach another year without our Maddie, we—her siblings, but especially me, her twin sister—ask you to bring awareness to childhood cancer in any way you can.
          
          Her loss cannot and will not be just another number in a statistic.
          Maddie was so much more than her cancer.

this month, two years ago, Maddie received her secondary cancer diagnosis, the one that ultimately made her slip into the slumber she never woke up from.
          
          It's hard to even accept that she is really not two doors down from me, listening to why don't we (because she loved those boys so much) and eating nutella while cuddling up to our Axel (her favorite and most loved baby).
          
          It's impossible to think that i would have an 18 year old sister (she would've turned 19 this year.)  probably having the time of her life in Italy, attending Uni, doing her own thing and telling me not to text her every 5 minutes like her twin does.
          
          i had 16 years (never ever enough.) of memories with my girl, and yet, all i think of when Maddie crosses my mind, is those last few weeks in Florence, as all of us sat around her bed, watching as cancer (fucking vile monster) stole our daughter, sister, niece and auntie from us in a horrible and quick decline while we had many more trips planned and the "3 or 5 months" the doctors said she would have once she stopped treatment turned to a few days.
          
          "Is this monster all we will ever know?" she asked while she underwent the toxic treatment that was her only option right after getting told there was even more disease this time around (she had been NED for 1 week.) (we were planning to ring the bell just a day after she got told she wasn't anymore).
          
          I miss you twin flame.
          
          gosh i miss you.
          
          you wouldve loved this life im living, you wouldve loved Cosmo and Ceres.
          
           I hope that in another thousand life's, all of us get to be siblings again.

Happy 18th birthday to our dear and sweetest Maddie.
          
          My favorite memory with her was when we got lost in Doncaster after deciding to explore for a while,we did that quite a lot.
          
          Fuck cancer.

I miss you so much.
          
          It’s not fair.

we didn’t know each other well but i will always wish we did. i miss seeing your comments and giggling over plots with you
          
          rest in peace ♥️ 

I love your little shrine account,I love and miss you so much.
          
          From the moment I started dating your brother to your last days we were inseparable,you were the little sister I never had and you unknowingly healed my heart from the grief I was feeling.