Recently I had the privilege of attending my sister’s white coat ceremony hosted by UT Southwestern’s Medical School.

The white coat ceremony is a rite of passage in which MS1’s, or first year medical students, finally receive their much anticipated white coats while walking across the stage with an onlooking audience. It’s reminiscent of a graduation except it’s more so a celebration of a beginning and marks a milestone of achievement early in an aspiring physician’s life.

For my sister’s class, it meant celebrating their accomplishment of surviving the first two grueling months of medical school.

As the ceremony progressed and the class patiently waited for their moment on the stage with their official white coat, faculty members spoke about their own trials and tribulations as med students and what the coming years would mean for the current students and their family and friends as well.

Besides the laughs and jokes about not seeing our med school siblings, sons, and daughters until graduation (being four years later), the reality of being less in touch with my sister than I already am really started to settle in.

It seemed like just yesterday I was up in the middle of the morning coming downstairs for a glass of water and saw her up and working at the dinner table, finishing up her homework for high school.

I still vividly remember tagging along with her for long car rides to hospitals she would volunteer in or dropping her off to KD. I fondly remember her fervently practicing her final presentation for ISM senior year and waking her up by any means possible (yelling, throwing water at her, throwing pillows at her, etc. and then getting yelled at back) in the mornings when I got ready to go to Fowler because my mom was convinced she’d sleep through her alarms and miss school by the time she came home.

Man, did those four years fly by.

The next four years of her in college flew by even faster as she got busy and involved with the changes in her life.

And I assume the next four years of her enrollment in med school will fly by at record speed based on how the other phases of her life went in my eyes.  

The white coat ceremony to me that day was a reminder of the human experience. We all are our own individuals, and we progress through life in different speeds with different trajectories. We all stand in various phases of life, unique to our life, accomplishments, setbacks, and visions. Nothing and no one is permanent. We simply cross paths with the course of our lives causing different intersections with others’.

Currently, with my sister, it seems like both our lives are branching off in different segments. As her career really starts to kick off at high speed, mine is just becoming to bud with the prospect of college and my future potential. Our lives, once relatively close parallel lines, are diverging at what may seem an alarming rate at times when I’m particular saddened by the subject.

As younger siblings, we’re often labelled as bratty, undeserving, and even leeches of our older siblings. I think what a lot of people don’t understand, though, is the short end of the stick we get in life sometimes.

We inherently and inevitably become a part of our older siblings’ journey of growth and life. We observe every accomplishment, milestone, and struggle they face in their life. We feel what they feel regardless of whether it’s the elation of victory or the pain of a failure. We are in almost every sense invested in them. But as the years go by, and they get busy with what life brings their way, they get caught up, sometimes unable to return that investment back in our lives.

Not many realize the price younger siblings have to pay in that aspect. It’s tough to think about.

But it’s completely understandable. I’m merely acknowledging the changing dynamic between my sibling and me and mean it with no malice or resentment in my tone. That’s just how life happens to unravel.

Sure, it does hurt sometimes to think about, but I choose not to get stuck on that. Instead, I say to appreciate every moment–big or small–with those you love around you. Mundane events that were once ordinary in the moment turn into special and cherished memories as I’ve noticed in my life.