At the start of junior year of high school I found myself extremely anxious/depressed, largely due to the fact that I was alone at home for the first time. Jonah had just started his freshman year at USC, and I was lost without him, and I am now feeling that pain all over again, but to more of an extreme. Although growing up I was made fun of constantly by my two older siblings, we had a bond people would be lucky to ever have with their siblings. I became so anxious junior year without Jonah because I had always followed in his footsteps (and Maya’s but not really). He played soccer, so I played soccer. He was in high math, so every year I tried to get into it (and I did eventually NBD). He took AP Physics so I took it, even though I despise science. And an obvious one, he went to USC and so do I. My entire life I have just wanted to spend time with him, whether it was him making me play goalie outside or going to get Sapporo together when we were in High School. That trend continued on to college, but instead of feeling like the uncool little sister, Jonah made me feel like we were mutually bestfriends. Every time I would walk into his apartment he would yell “hey sumcrum!”, and at every party we went to together he’d introduce me to his friends. I felt famous walking in to tke because somehow everyone knew who I was, and I didn’t care if they only knew me as “Jonah’s little sister”. When Maya came to visit me and Jonah at USC I had felt like the third-wheel sibling, much like I did when we were growing up; but I didn’t care. I knew deep down it wasn’t actually like that, but their relationship was something I am so grateful I got to witness. They would make each other laugh until they couldn’t breathe, knew EXACTLY what to say to each other, and made fun of me together. I had to tap out and go back to my room because of how rowdy they were being, and I couldn’t keep up. Jonah and Maya have always been, and always will be my best friends. I will miss Jonah’s ability to always put me in my place and always rub in the fact that he was better at everything (besides his handwriting was awful). I’ll carry on his legacy at USC and hopefully become even half as successful as he would have been.

Here is a list of some memories that come to mind.

-Jonah and I playing ‘mini soccer’ in our kitchen
-Spending the entirety of Christmas break eating edibles and falling asleep on the couch. We also watched Beethoven and kept commenting on it.
-Him CHUCKING a Poland spring water bottle at me from across the kitchen
-Jonah reading ‘Magic Treehouse’ to me before I could read
-We would go to parties together and people would ask me “how long are you visiting?”, and Jonah wouldn’t correct them and tell them we both go to USC
-We would have sleepovers in my room where he’d drag a mattress onto my floor and sleep on it
-Him coming into my room when I was sleeping so he could take Stella (our dog) into his room
-Everyone in tke telling me “your brother is the absolute best”
-Him announcing to the entire library in High School that I had “shit my pants”, which was not true
-When we were play fighting at the bus stop and he punched me in the nose so hard I had to miss the start of school
-At my high school graduation he brought a fathead of my face and was screaming my name the entire time
-As you can see in the photo, he would never put his arm around me until his senior year, but I knew he loved me anyways.
-Him not admitting that he was over 100 pounds when we were in the airport
-He always said I never brushed my teeth, even though I did
-How excited he was about me getting into Kappa and saying it was because "I was so awesome". One of the few compliments he said to my face.
-How I would text him any and every question I had at school, and he usually would reply with "idk".
-How he let me lay on his couch in his apartment when I was crying.
-He forced me to take a bird scooter for the first time to meet him so we could get tacos as soon as possible. He also made me pay for those tacos, but I was just glad he wanted to get them at 1am when no one else did.
-He used to tell me he would 'train me' but it would just result in him saying we could run together. He ran a 6 minute mile. I can maybe run down a football field without stopping. He didn't understand this and would get mad when I said I didn't want to run 5 miles with him to Chris' house.
-Any memory of him is amazing, even the ones where he tormented me. I'll even miss him waking me up at 3am when he would crawl through the doggy door.

I’ll write more as they come. I’ll never stop thinking about you, Jonah. I am so glad you were so happy and you truly were living your best life. Hopefully somewhere inside me there is the humor, intellect, drive, and care you had the entire time. I love you so much.

-Sumcrum, Summy, Sumsum, Summo, and your favorite, Salome.