A recent photo essay in the New York Times Magazine is keeping me awake. “Forty Portraits in Forty Years” shows an annual accounting of the Brown sisters—Heather, Mimi, Bebe and Laurie—beginning in 1975. The photographer, Nicholas Nixon, is married to Bebe. Susan Minot writes the text that accompanies Nixon’s photos (which will hang in MOMA in November 2014), and she tells the story of those sisters better than I can.

All I can share with you is the slow reaction the photos evoke in me.

I know why I love the first photo. I am easily one of them—just 15 in 1975 and as clear-eyed as they seem. Comfortable in the power of my youth. My life is ahead of me, and what could lie ahead but good things.

I move through the photos, wishing for color in 1977 so I can confirm that Laurie is wearing the striped cowl neck sweater I wore for my high school graduation photo. Did she take it out of my closet?

In 1980, Bebe is half hidden behind Laurie; that shakes me. I make my way through the ‘80s and ‘90s, and with each photo anxiety grows. The century turns and I think of turning back. I’m now dreading what each year will bring.

Soon it will be 2008, the year my dear sister Connie died.

But we are still in 2007, and the Brown sisters are looking right into my eyes. Their mouths don’t move, but I hear them whisper, “Hold on to us. Hold on and go forward.” It’s as though they know how bad the next year will be for me. And because I haven’t yet seen the portrait that captures their 2008, I wonder if it will be bad for them, too. In only seven more photos I will reach 2014—I will see who is left. I fear terribly that by then there will only be three. Or worse, two or one.

What builds suspense for readers is the slow approach of what they fear.