My Sisters…….

 

So many things are happening around me to the people I love.  I spent the day with my best friend from High School who lost her son in October.  I feel good that she knows she can tell me anything, no matter how dark, about what she is going through and she knows that somehow I get it….I guess that’s how it is with someone you’ve known since you were 15.  I love that girl like she is my sister.  Losing is child is a journey that will not end for her until she breathes her last breath.  I loved her son…I can still see is beautiful smile.  It still doesn’t feel real that he is gone.  I talk to her about him…people avoid doing that with parents who have lost their child in an attempt to save them from feeling more pain but, they do want to talk.  I get that now.

My sister called me tonight.  Since she found out she had cancer she isolated herself from almost everyone.  I have been calling, leaving messages, and texting her daily just to let her know I am here.  When I saw he name of an incoming phone call I was so relieved.  We talked for hours.  She has seemed to come out of the fog that has been surrounding her and I am grateful for that.  She has 2 years of treatments ahead of her.   She will survive this.

My youngest sister is facing a divorce of her own doing.  I feel for her but, she made it happen.  Her husband is not a perfect man but, he did love her.  She threw it away in favor of her drug abuse.  she started out with prescription drugs but, I have no idea what it has escalated to.  I tried for years and years to get her help.  I tried every trick in the book.  Nothing worked.  I just told her how much I love her and that I am here for her if she needed to get help.  That is all I can do.  My baby sister.

My middle sister is in a mess of her own.  Because of her neglect of my beautiful niece my 15-year-old niece is pregnant.  I am in shock.  My sister’s life has been spiraling out of control for 2 years since the father of he daughters suddenly died.  I have tried everything to help her, too.  She doesn’t want my help and now hates me because I called child protective services on her for the neglect.  She is involved with a horrible man.  After a million phone calls to DCF I finally got them to get a court order keeping him away from my nieces.  That only made my sister practically move out of the apartment she shared with my nieces and into the horrible man’s place.  That left 2 young teens with free reign to do whatever they felt like doing….like any teen would be thrilled to do and DCF did nothing to stop it even though the girls had plenty of good, safe place to be.  Now my niece, who held so much promise in her life with her beautiful mind and kind heart will be a mother by Christmas.  I tried for 2 years to get my sister the help she needed.

Then there are my two.  My Son and Daughter.  The two of them best friends.  I love to listen to them talk when I am in another room.  I wanted them to be close and they are.  My son on the dean’s list in college….starting his third year in september.  My baby girl just got her first job.  Taking 3 AP classes in her senior year of high school.  Both of them ready to take on the world.  Both of them doing what it takes to build their lives.  If you talk to them they will tell you that I had nothing to do with the direction they are headed in.  When they say that I bite my tongue.  I stop myself from telling them how hard I worked to keep them on the right track.  Maybe they will realize that when they are older.

My sisters are a mess.  Right now, I am like a bird without my wings.  When I cry I cry alone.  No one holds me.  no one tells me it’s going to be ok.  This is not the first time in this position for me.  What makes me hold on are my children.  I have held on for them through seemingly insurmountable situations in the past and I will continue to do so.  I have to.  I love them so deeply and completely.

While at the time I am a helpless Sister, I am a devoted Mother and no one can take that away from me.