A New Song Just Past the Horizon, Part I

We sat in the waiting room together, Sissy and I, this past Monday morning. This appointment was long overdue, and even though watching her cry was painful for me, I knew it was the right place for us to be. She didn’t want to be there but I knew, in fact, we should have been there a long time ago. And I think she knew that too; she just didn’t want to be.

My sister is the most loving and gentle-spirited person you can imagine. She was always a quiet little girl, 4 years younger than me, and more of a nuisance to me than anything else. We didn’t really become friends until I went away to college, and realized how much I missed her. We have been inseparable since then.

She and I traveled together in the 70’s, driving my little orange VW Karmann Ghia twice out west to Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, even down into Mexico one year. We were small town girls who had never been anywhere, and we had some amazing adventures together. Those memories have lasted us a lifetime. She married in 1978, to a pre-med student and from then on I traveled alone.

Her husband’s education caused us to be separated for many years, as they moved several times to accommodate his schooling. After graduating from medical school, he secured a residency 2 hours away and they moved once more. We tried to spend every spare moment together, but with my job and a small child and her lack of money it wasn’t always possible. She was my best friend, and I missed her desperately, but we called and we wrote letters and we visited whenever we could.

It was Christmas of 1990 when she told me that her husband was leaving her. After 12 years of marriage, he had met a nurse that he liked, and he told my sister he didn’t love her anymore. By the following February he had moved out; she couldn’t afford the beautiful old Spanish-style house they had found, so she had no option but to find a job and a cheap apartment.

Without a college degree or any specialized training, the only job she could find was working part time for the Humane Society. Her home was a cheap garage apartment with a gazillion steps leading up to it; the closest phone was a pay phone down the street. Those were some sad times for the both of us.

She was two hours away from me, with no telephone and no family nearby. I didn’t know then how sad and lonely she was; I didn’t know that she didn’t have money to buy food, and went hungry lots of times. I didn’t know how devastated she was, how discarded and useless she felt; I didn’t know until much later about the night she sat on her bed and put the barrel of her pistol into her mouth. I can barely stand to write that. A long time later, we talked about it and I asked her what stopped her from pulling the trigger; she told me she thought about Summer, and she just couldn’t do that to her. I get limp with gratitude and thankfulness when I think about it.

Eventually, she began to live again; eventually the dark cloud lifted. She got a better job, a better place to live, and eventually met and married her current husband Randy. In 1994, she and I decided we had lived apart far too many years, and we set about to make a way for her and Randy to move here; that happened the following year and the two of us have been inseparable since then.

She has struggled with depression for many years. Even as a child, I believe her quietness hid an underlying sense of hopelessness. Where I was loud and rebellious, she always tried to fly underneath the radar. I believe she was depressed even way back then, and as her life unfolded I believe the depression began to deepen.

There have been times when the blackness overwhelms her to the point where she is unable to function. I have literally gone to her house, dragged her out of bed and made her get dressed. I have put her in my car and taken her for a drive, out for a burger, anything just to force her to interact.

For the most part, with the help of medication, she is seemingly fine. She has an offbeat sense of humor, and we get each other. We finish each other’s sentences, even joke that we share a brain. She is delightful, thoughtful, loving and generous; everything you would ever want your sister to be. When she hurts, I hurt. I can usually tell when the darkness is beginning to creep in.

Last fall, she decided she couldn’t bear the side effects of her medication; she thought it wasn’t really helping, and so (unknown to me) she took herself off. Cold turkey. She was fine for about two weeks, then she crashed. And it was not a pretty sight.   (….to be continued….)

Sissy, Summer, Mom (holding Tigre`) and me, ~1992

Sissy and me on one of our adventures, ~1976