I remember the day Elizabeth was born.
I was six years old, a weird little kid with a wild imagination and more energy than good sense. I was going to Wren Hollow Elementary at the time. It was an ordinary day—maybe cloudy, maybe sunny. That part’s a little fuzzy now. I think I’d been staying over with some family friends the night before, which wasn’t unusual back then, especially with everything happening at home. But what happened next etched itself into my bones.
I got called to the principal’s office.
Now, if you knew me then, you’d understand why my first reaction was panic. I was no stranger to that walk—usually because I couldn’t sit still in class or said something wildly inappropriate that made my teachers blush and my mom sigh. So I trudged down the hallway, trying to figure out what I’d done this time.
But when I got there, everything shifted.
The principal smiled (which was rare), handed me the phone, and I heard the news: “You’re a big brother.”
I can’t explain what that felt like. One minute I was just a kid—half-lost in my own world—and the next I was someone’s protector, someone’s example, someone’s whole world. In that moment, I felt important. Not in a boastful way… in a sacred way. Like I’d just been given a mission.
And I took it seriously.
Even though I was just a little boy, something clicked in me that day. A sense of responsibility. Of wonder. Of love. I didn’t know what kind of sister Elizabeth would be—I just knew I wanted to be the kind of brother she deserved.
That feeling never really left.
Even now.
She’s not gone.
She’s just… everywhere I look.
-DC Potts
