Anastasia

Emily

Hello baby sister,
go on on adventures and cure the world. Drink wine and forget about the bad things for a night. Kiss your friends and kiss some strangers.

Dear baby sister,
Meet new people and tell them your biggest fear. When you see them again, tell them about how you conquered it. Don't get trapped in yourself: be free to change your opinions. If someone calls you out on it tell them it's growing up.

Oh baby sister,
sometimes sadness will find you. When it happens do not be afraid to call a loved one. Even if they didn't know how to make it better, they will help you carry the burden. When you break your heart for the first time, you will feel like you are alone. But even then you must call someone - especially then.

My baby sister,
sometimes you will meet evil and it will darken your mind, nevertheless the shadow is not eternal. Remember to be happy and remember me too.

-Forever your sister...

Ana 

--

"She looked at the world like it was the brightest thing she had ever witnessed. I wish she would have just looked inside of her and understand that the world wasn't bright, she was the brightest."

"I looked up to her in so many different ways, I couldn't even begin to tell you." Emily sighed. She was now working for a tech company in Boston and had 2 boys. Recently divorced from her husbands, she spent the summers in LA with her boys and friends, somewhere she had been escaping off to for years now. She loved LA, it reminded her of Ana. LA was Ana. Not a day passed where Emily would think of her sister and how much she would've loved her nephews. Ana had left a lot of things for Emily, she had left her a house in Beverly Hills, cars, clothes, awards and money. It had been 20 years and Emily hadn't touched anything. She couldn't, she would never allow herself to. 

"I remember the first time she brought me around LA, the first place she took my was Laurel Canyon. She loved how discrete it was and was telling me how one day her and Slash wanted to get a house and settle there." 

"She was a lot different in high school thats for sure. She wasn't a popular kid, at all," Emily laughed, " but, she was still known to me inteimdiatinly cool, not saying much, keeping to herself, trying to make as little contact with people as possible. She wrote a lot. She kept journals everywhere, she wanted to be a writer. She loved making people smile, she loved entertaining people with her words. I think thats why she became an actor." 

"She kept a lot of herself hidden, growing up, I remember her always being closed off in her room, blasting music and painting ferociously. Our parents thought that there was something wrong with her, of why she was so kept off from society. They did a lot of wrong things to her, set their expectation too high and once they didn't see those expectations come to reality they automatically outed her as 'abnormal'." 

"They would tell me, 'don't be like her', 'she's crazy', 'she's a lunatic', 'her brains not right'. But I just saw her as my cool older sister who was just so naturally gifted. I admired her differences." 

"Slash contacted me through god knows where to meet with my sister in December 91'. I was 19 and got a phone call from Slash from Guns N' Roses, my friends freaked the fuck out." she laughed.

"I knew that they were together, obviously the world knew. I was just so stoked that he had been the one to find me and contact me. He brought us back together and made us a family again. I owe him so much for that. I got to spend the remaining time of her life with her." 

"Was I surprised by her death? Yes, obviously, but I understood why. She was a paradox, always had been. She couldn't keep her contradictory personalities at bay. She was full of insecurities that she led her to feel less confident with her body. People told her that she was  perfect and she would smile upon hearing the compliment, but at night I knew, when she's lying alone it would haunt her. She was  pretentious and that made other people believe that she was okay even if something was slowly killing her inside. She liked to be alone yet she didn't feel lonely at all. She had things, did things that covered the absence of someone who was not there to hold her heart. She even fooled loneliness that she thought she was fine just by herself. She didn't know how to deal with someone in an emotional level, yet alone her own self." 

"I remember a lot of the things our parents did to her. The institutionalizing because they thought she was sick, she scared them because they didn't know how to control her. They neglected their own daughter for so long it made an impact on her own personality obviously." 

"She would tell me how much she loved this city, she would always tell me the stories that happened on every street, the parties, the art, the music the movies. Every single time I came down to LA, she would take me somewhere new. Our favourite place was Joshua Tree Park. She owned a little trailer there that not even Slash knew about and we went camping there a few nights every single time I would come down. It was almost ritualistic." Emily laughed. 

"She would take numerous pictures of me and I her. We had a huge collection of pictures of one another. I think I might make it a memoir one day."