This is the hardest thing I’ve had to write

My mother laid on the hospital bed, holding my new little sister. She looked so beautiful. I walked over and mother handed her to me without question. Ari was all that I had ever hoped for. We have had so much loss and I knew that this perfect child would weigh out that burden and have a life of her own. She'd say her first word and take her first step and go through school. She'd date and she'd live and she'd breathe. And I was ecstatic. I peered at the my baby sister as she laid in my arms and she gave me the faintest smile, and I laughed despite myself. I reached down and stroked a strand of her dark hair and I ran my hand to her little one and the child's fingers squeezed mine, but something was off. I couldn't feel her touch. The room around me started to grow black at the corners. Mom's and Ari's face grew blurry and everything went dark.

I wake up slowly. I look around the pitch black room and feel a wave of nausea wash over me as the realization of what just happened hit me.

It was just a dream.

A stupid dream.

How could I do that to myself?

I don't even know what Ari looks like. I never got to see her, and I never will. Tears spill from my eyes and they soak my blanket. I try to keep in my sobs. I try to force them down my throat, but they come up regardless. I silently curse God for this dream. For causing me this pain and this hurt. For bringing her into my only sanctuary of peace from her memory. But I thank him for letting me see her. For letting me get a glimpse of her. Of my beautiful little sister before the pain becomes too much and I force myself to forget. But I don't want to forget. I can't. She's a part of me that I'll never have, and her image will eat away at my dreams for the rest of my life.