Grit. Well, what does the word grit actually mean to me? In my life, grit means getting through each day with effort, a smile,and a challenge. You can't show grit unless you have a challenge. My challenge, well, it wasn't exactly mine I guess, but my sisters. I watched her go through it and that brought us closer together. This challenge was anorexia.

Now, chances are if you have a completely normal childhood you don't know what this word means and man, you are so fortunate. I really wish I didn't know what this word meant. I didn't at one point this was maybe two years ago. Thinking back to that time where things seemed so normal and regular that year changed my life forever. Anorexia a mental disease where your mind tells you, you are fat so the body starves itself. That might have been the scientific way of saying it but in real life this meant doctors ,yelling, staying up way too late to do homework and crying in the middle of the night just hoping no one would hear. When my sister would yell she would say things like “WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME DO THIS?” My parents would just barely get the words out “ We are just trying to make you healthy.”

That became my life and I can assure you that was no way of living. I came home from school took off my shoes gave my two dogs a kiss on the head and watched tv. Which was a normal routine then. I received a call from my dad saying we were going to go see my sister and my mom at the hospital. When he came home I was shocked and quickly asked "what do you mean... the hospital?"He explained camryn's heart rate was to low so they had to keep her in the hospital until it got back up again. I thought nothing of it and replied with a short ok. I'm not sure what my parents thought of it.  I think they knew that she was getting home at 9 most days and wasn't eating dinner, I don't think they knew how much more it was then that.

The hospital had the smell of doctors and those gloves they put on there hands, somehow it smelt cold to me not sure how but it did. I walked in to my sister crying in my mom’s arms. I quietly stood in the corner and waited for further instruction from my dad but he didn’t say anything. I heard someone next to us in the room my mom explained the girl had just gotten her appendix removed. The doctors rumored in the halls whispering things like “ is she eating all 3 meal and is there any changes in behavior?” “Not that we know of” was the short reply from my parents who obviously didn’t know the full story. I began to tune them out and continued watching High School Musical with Camryn.

Over the next week or so I didn't really see that strong funny sister, I more saw a scared and fragile girl. She had to eat the meals provided call whenever she went the bathroom and get her blood taken. I didn't understand how big of a deal it was when she got to go around in a wheelchair or go out of the room to do crafts with me. They let her out right after thanksgiving things continued to get worse. My big sister was slowly decaying in anger and sorrow. My mom enrolled her in a michigan program they had for people with this disease.

One day, I went in with my family for a  therapy session. I listened and looked down trying to disappear in the midst of it all until the lady with blonde hair and glasses asked "what changes have you seen in your sister?"
Oh no I thought to myself, tears became rolling down my eyes like torpedoes and the room became blurry I stammered "she used to always ask me to ask my parents if we could get ice cream... and and to watch movies but now all she does is hide in her room all day" the tears were still coming and i knew my sister was crying to, i didn't need to look i just knew. My mom is a teacher she has blonde hair blue eyes and a kind smile, only her smile had faded and the circles under her eyes became more defined, she had taken a leave from work so she could stay more on top of cams schedule. Sometimes I would go in to eat breakfast with camryn and my mom but it always made me depressed. All those girls around me cry and scream because they didn't want to eat there food, a task that had seemed so simple for me.

It was getting hard at school to keep coming up with lies about why I was missing some mornings. My teacher had become my safe place I would cry and explain things to her and she well she would listen. I was so grateful because even though I was mindful of what was happening with camryn, I didn't really have anyone to listen to me and it felt good when someone did. My friends were clueless and I well I was hopeless I didn't see why this had to happen to our family to my big sister.

Her best friend Ava, was over all the time and you could tell she brought the best out in Camryn but then they started to get in fights. One night my parents yelled at Camryn and she quickly ran to the bathroom and locked the door. Talking to me through the shower curtain how annoying Ava was for bringing our parents into it. I agreed and once I got out she followed me to my room where we continued to just talk. Ava came in and started to talk to Camryn but in a short amount time this resulted in yelling right in front of me again tears ran down my eyes into my mouth and down my chin they fought over who was making me cry and my mom made them leave my room, i cried all night but i didn't want to talk about it.

Back to school the next day and that's just how things were. Some days better than others but all very harsh. my sister always wears blankets to cover her body tries to keep her room very cold so she can burn off what she can it didn't make sense but nothing over that year really made sense. i would walk into my sister's room to see her on the floor watching a workout video and doing exercises exactly what we didn't want her to be doing. i gently walked over to her bed jumped up and sank slowly i was hoping that the bed would swallow me because then i didn't really see a point to stay. To stay and watch my sister do this to herself. i wanted to be there for her but wasn't really sure how to when i know this is all wrong.

i pick up details as the days go by which felt like months and winter turned to spring and i just thought has she even gotten better? i asked this question over over in my mind it was digging into my brain hoping the answer was yes but deep down knowing it was a no, because when i went to soccer practice she might have been in her closet plastic wrapping herself hoping to be skinnier. the thought of that brought chills over my entire body left my face hot and my body parts sore just choking down my tears.

My sister went back to school in the Spring that was when things started to begin looking up for me. She still wasn't that old girl that stay up late with me and scoop out the pantry for anything sweet but it was a step closer and for me it was a little sliver of hope a little voice in my head saying "things are starting to get better" and " finally things are looking up!" Don't get me wrong though there was always those nights where she refused to eat my parents would yell she would scream and i would cry. But then there was those days when my mom would pick me up from school and take me and camryn to the humane society somewhere we began to visit weekly and was comforting for us girls. i tried to picture myself in the dogs shoes just as i would hope someone would do for me, no one could understand when i didn't have a math problem done or forgot about the scholastic news article we were supposed to read. it was hard just to sit there and let my friends think i was easily falling behind and wasn't as smart, on the inside i was screaming and felt a need to tell them so they could just understand. I knew i couldn't and kept quite looked down laughed and said " dang it i forgot it on my bed," i think we all knew this was a lie but it was the best i could do.

For camryn i can only really imagine what it was like for her and every time i even start to close my eyes and think i quickly re open them and start to quiver because i knew no one should feel like that and especially not camryn this beautiful girl who did three sports and still got all As this person i was so jealous of lives a life no one can imagine and no one would want. 2 years have passed and i can still remember everything like it was just yesterday the yelling and the crying come up most vividly but other parts still clear as day in the back of my mind ready to come up whenever they want.

Right now i'm as happy as ever because my sister even though not completely cured is so close and not giving up i think sometimes she just completely forgets about it even and lives her life like a normal teenager. i was happy for her and still so jealous not of her life exactly but how this huge obstacle came at her and she used grit to get through it i don't think i know anyone else that could do this.

She has pushed so hard to fight this disease, this disease that almost broke down my sister and my family but she pushed back and parts have been hard but they way things are starting to turn out it really just feels incredible, incredible to think after all this it might be over soon? There might be no more crying and screaming about eating that task that everyone did in order to survive, think about this when your body tells you to not eat even though you need to do that in order to survive your body telling you to slowly kill yourself or see how long you can go without food because you are just too fat. this wasn't the case at all my sister was already very thin and needed to eat more already.

I try to blame gymnastics for why this happened they would judge about her size and criticize her all the time but maybe it wasn't gymnastics maybe it was my sister wanting to be a perfectionist and only thinking she could do that if well if she was skinnier. Then this overwhelming feeling came over my body leaving me feeling empty maybe this was going to happen all along. When you look at the videos when we were kids and everything was easy and happy, now there's all this stress with being perfect and sports and always winning but also don't forget to get good grades and be in bed at 10 and do it all over again tomorrow. I could understand why my mom stresses every time I didn't have lunch or didn't want to eat breakfast she was and maybe still is scared this will happen to me. My sister comes into my room late and watches videos with me on my phone, takes pictures of us, plays volleyball with me,and has inside jokes with me. My sister is back with that annoyingly perfect smile dirty blonde hair and blue eyes I missed her and the anorexia is still there but it's faded and my sister has taken control. This thought of anorexia has evaporated from my mind only leaving traces behind. People don't always know what she has been through but I do. My big sister is beating anorexia and she is the grittiest person I know.