Dear Sister, How Do You Do, Now?

One hot night in Florida, my sister and I went out dancing, driving my dad’s car when we both visited him. I was a pretty good club dancer, and it was time to have fun during a family visit. My sister was a good sport, and we now of the age and maturity to become close. She had had her first schizophrenic breakdown, but was back in college, and dating. We separated in the club, dancing with different cliques. I went to have fun and dance, but evidently she was the hit.  She met a handsome Peruvian, and he invited to his Mercedes parked outside for a little nose candy. When we got in his car, it became obvious he wanted my sister, a lot, and he was just asking for my permission while entertaining us with a huge cigar box filled with cocaine.  It was still dark, and for miraculous reason while being high, my sister and I were on to his invitation and game. Tapping each other’s legs in communication while in the rear seats, so he could not see. So we asked him of instead of driving us to his huge condo to party on, that we follow him in our car, so we could avoid Miami Beach parking fine. He dropped us off at our car, and we proceeded to follow him, but we both had the idea that this would be scary to follow a big drug dealer home. I drove and we waited for a place to ditch him where he could not turn and follow. The cocaine was running a good dose of paranoia through us both, excited and determined to get away. She yelled at me, “NOW!”, and I quickly turned left while he got on the freeway, unable to stop in a flow of traffic. We did it and sped off in the opposite direction, with her looking back and reporting to me, stopping an hour later to rejoice, laughing non-stop. Dawn light was beginning to show the potential of yet another beautiful sunny day with oranges, pinks, and yellow. I had won my sister back….this time.

With concern constantly coming your way, your family is carrying great shock and yet its mixed with a total understanding for wanting peace from your mental illness. Thirty-three years you have been hospitalized many times, walked homeless unmedicated and forced to get shots, all while being a bright intelligent woman with a masters in film, each episode you would try to return to have some kind of normalcy. Your escape to New Zealand was your last ditch attempt to escape the voices in your head in a country with a decent mental health care system. Damn, you tried and tried, when I would have just quit life. Then, later losing your new husband and love to a mentally induced suicide in foreign country was something none of us could imagine. So the leap was for peace and reuniting with him, and you went into the abyss happy and determined. The family deep down, know it was never about us, and will try to balance the hurt with logic as we place ourselves in your shoes, with the mental illness you were born with. With your new found peace, also goes the delusions of persecution about several of us were decorated with, but know that all the love in the world(our mother tried, and never failed you) cannot surpass schizophrenic paranoia.