I often wondered what it would have been like if we could have actually been sisters. We were sisters by blood, of course, but we weren’t the television duo I had always imagined we could be. We were never destined to be Mary and Lucy or DJ and Stephanie, but we had our own dynamic that not many people could ever understand. I’m not even sure if I understood it.
When I was little, I wondered why you weren’t around very often. You were a lot older than me, so you were busy falling in love and having a child, but, as I got older, the story changed. Now you were away because you were “sick.” You were in rehab. I even got to visit you once. You didn’t look sick to me. You just looked like my sister.
Hushed voices filled family functions. They always asked me if I had heard from you. The answer was always no. When I started babysitting your children, I was absolutely terrified that you would come back when I was the only one home. It happened, but my aunt was there, too. She let you play with the kids in the park and spend some time with them. You were always running on borrowed time.
It took a really long time for me to figure out what “sick” really meant. Longer than it should have. “Sick” was just another way for us to cope with the reality that you were addicted to drugs. It shattered my world. I struggled with the idea that you chose heroin over your family, your true friends, even your own children. I’m still trying to come to terms with that.
Now, I am well-aware that addiction is not a choice. No one chooses to need something so much that it crushes their world, destroys their family and shatters their entire identity. I understand, but I still don’t get it. As a child, they always warned us against cigarettes, how even smoking one time can lead to lifetime of nicotine dependency. So that poses the question: why did you choose to do it the first time? What’s worse is that I will never get to know. I can hypothesize and talk to the people who knew you better back then, but I will never have the answer to the one characteristic that defined your entire existence through my eyes.
On July 20, 2014, I went to the park with one of my friends. We were just driving around and having fun. It was just like any other day. Then, I got a phone call from my dad telling me that I needed to come home immediately. I had accidentally taken the car keys to my car, which I had left at home. “Your sister is dead.” Four words that many would think cause an immediate response of despair, grief, hopelessness. None of that happened. Not to me.
I said, “Okay.” Then, I drove back home and dropped off the keys. My friend, who had known about my sister, was still in the car with me. I drove away before anyone could say anything to me. My response to the shocking news was to get frozen yogurt. It wasn’t until later, after I dropped my friend off at home, that I realized what it all really meant.
I still couldn’t go home. I couldn’t watch our mother mourn a daughter I barely knew. I would never be able to comfort her. So I went to my cousin’s house. “My Favorite Things” was playing in my car as I pulled into her house. It was the first time I was able to cry. I’m still not sure if it was a cry of grief...or relief.
It is almost two years later now. I’ve been to the prom, graduation, move-in day to college and even move-out day. I’ve seen my friends rave about how their sisters gave them all the tips and tricks to surviving in college. I have none of that. I have a cautionary tale about the risks of drug addiction. We’ll never get the chance to plan weddings or baby-showers. We will never celebrate birthdays and Christmases. All I get is an urn, an obituary and a heart that hurts when I think about you.
