I remember you as you were, five years ago.

Meeting you finally drew together all the scattered comments that had been made. You were so different from my imagination, an imagination that held no restraints as I had never ever seen a picture of you. You were more beautiful and vibrant in the flesh than in my dreams, my dear Aunt Fara.

My Dad's youngest sister, I knew that he loved, and loves, you alot, perhaps more than any of your other four siblings. Which is why I was so excited to meet you, even after enduring that long fifteen hour flight to Los Angeles. You had come across the country from New York to be in LA for my uncle's wedding, and even though you had just arrived and was understandably tired, you still took my brother and I under your wing.

You entertained us and kept us out of teenage mischief as we waited impatiently for the party to begin. You may have left the very next day, but I never forgot the moments we shared, and the bond that I felt with you.

But that was five years ago.

You lived so far away from us, from the rest of your family. Would it have mattered if we had been there? Would we have been able to stop you from filling your flat with gas in a deliberate attempt to end your life? Would we have been able to prevent the pain that comes from 42% of your body being covered in burns? Would it have mattered? Five years, and now, so much has changed.

I remember seeing you again two years ago for the first time after your "accident". My parents had warned me that you would look drastically different, but nothing would've been able to prepare me. I wanted to cry as I remembered your beauty. You wore a flesh-covered mask, with holes for your ears, eyes, nostrils and mouth. Every inch of your skin was covered, yet I could see angry red scars where the holes showed tiny inches of skin. I tried to pretend that everything was normal, but I was petrified that you'd see the lies hidden in my eyes. The lies and the pain.

Your attempted suicide had such a far reaching effect. The news of your "accident" flew out with cold fingers and broke into our secure lives. Your mother and father, my beloved grandparents, dropped everything to be with you. My Dad, hearing the news, broke down and cried. Do you know how frightening it is to see someone that you always believed was made of steel and concrete crumble like sand?

Your one action rippled out and changed so many lives. Your life will never be the same. Physically scarred, your burns will always remain. And what about your emotional scars?

Your parents' lives will never be the same. Having brought up six children, they seemed free of the burdens of family life. But you, having flown far from the nest, was brought back, your wings damaged.

My Dad's life will never be the same. The time spent worrying about you aged him, aged him in a way that only people extremely close to him can see. Some days he thinks about you, and those days he's not so quick to laugh. And he worries about you. I hear it in the tone of his voice and I see it in the furrow of his forehead whenever you talk on the phone.

And me? Somedays I think about you and I'm sad. Somedays I talk to you briefly on the phone and I remember how you used to be. Not just what you used to look like. But the person you were.

I miss her, even though I only met her once. But I love you, and I guess I always will.

Be strong.