The two girls have shiny, black hair, “think the same things and like the same things like music,” Carolyn says.

But Rachel has never lived at home.

Rachel was born with a life-threatening condition that weakens her muscles. She lives at Bloorview Kids Rehab where she uses a ventilator to breathe and a wheelchair to move.

“I used to cry when we had to leave her because I’d like to have her at home,” Carolyn says.

Carolyn loves to push Rachel around the hospital, show her the exotic fish tank and “talk to her about stuff — mostly filling her in about my mom and dad,” she says. “Rachel likes to hear me sing and will start smiling — especially if I sing the Hokey Pokey. We like to take her out to play and one time they had kids from the University of Toronto come to sing Christmas carols and Rachel was laughing. She smiles a lot when she hears my parents’ or my voice. She has two little dimples that we like to see and sometimes when she’s very, very happy she makes a laughing noise.”

If Carolyn had a magic wand, she would give Rachel a richer way to communicate, she says. Right now Rachel can answer ‘yes’ by looking up and ‘no’ by looking down. “Usually sisters or brothers talk to each other about problems they have, but because Rachel can’t talk, it’s hard for me to know what she’s feeling, and when I tell her something she can’t respond back.”

Carolyn says she worries about the future. “If my mom and dad get old and I have to take care of her, I can do that. But what happens if later on she dies and I get really sad and heartbroken?”