A year ago today, I was only less than a month into having moved to Indianhead Village on Fort Benning from Warner Robins.

I was watching anime, staying up all night, still very new to the area, getting settled into post-college life under someone else’s roof. Connie was highly regulated in when she had to be in bed, when to take cancer meds, etc. But at around this time, she would be in bed in the back room watching Lifetime, Oxygen, USA, HLN, BET or Hallmark Channel.

I noticed that she stayed awake for hours into the night with her eyes open, watching the TV; it was more occasional for me to find the TV watching her as she had dozed off. Mom was sleep in the front room, with the religious channels uttering the growls and wheezes of the fire-and-brimstone preachers. Brandon would be watching Naruto on my Roku box, RJ would be watching Disney channel (or the TV would be left running).

I would be in the extra room either reading, watching anime, or both. Even then, even while Connie battled the cancer, I paid as little mind to the cancer during these hours as possible.

Tomorrow, Connie could be driven to work at the post hospital, Mom could make another cake to sell to friends of Connie’s, RJ could go to summer school at SAS (and have another argument with Brandon when he got home), Brandon could sleep in, I could acquiesce to RJ nagging me to take him to the pool down the street.

But like right now, I would be watching the ceiling in the dark, perhaps wondering what will happen to us.

If only I had known of what Connie would tell us next month, on her birthday. If only I had known that this month would be the last month of any semblance of sanity. Would I have attempted, if I had known of it, to end my own life, just to not see what my sister would lose, what (and who, and how) my nephews, Mom, Wanda, Chris, Dad and my nieces would lose?