Teresa

My sister Teresa is on my mind. This date, fourteen years ago, was the last full day of her life. 2000 was not a banner year for me. February, my mom. Sometime mid-summer, my ferret Bandit (my first pet as an adult). And August 20th, my only older sister. I had not yet turned 29.

I don't feel sorry for myself. Or, at least, not often. If there's anything that my career has given me, it is an awareness of how much worse things could and can be. My blessings are beyond measure. And I have this career directly because of Teresa. It was her addiction and her rehab stay when I was 14 and her subsequent time of sobriety that led me to becoming a chemical dependency counselor and eventually a social worker. Which is in its way strange, because she is a casualty. At 28, six years into my work, I could not 'save' her. And at 42, with a Master's Degree now in hand, I don't know that I would be any more successful. I don't know that I'm a good therapist. I just know that working with the chemically dependent was what I made a decision to do. And I used to think it was kind of by default. I didn't know what I wanted to do for grad school. And a year of volunteer service seemed worthwhile as a time to discover my path. But in truth I chose addiction. The post-graduate service fair had scores of volunteer programs. I didn't hesitate for a moment in my selection. I didn't even apply anywhere else. The application essay was as easy as breathing. I did not end up at St. Joseph's Rehabilitation Center by default. It was because of her.

I wonder sometimes if Teresa would still be alive if she'd gotten better treatment. I am angry when I think about how the State of California cut her loose from jail miles from her family, without a dime to her name, much less a referral for follow up care. I am tortured when I think about how I was trying that last month to get her to New York, where I knew I could get her more help. People in New York hate their tax burden. I understand. But New Yorkers have some of the best social services in the country because of those taxes. Coming to Ohio was a rude wake up call in that regard. Money is not the panacea. But without it, the cracks in daily life get wider and deeper and swallow up those whose minds have betrayed them.

I thought about Teresa and my mom and my cousin when Robin Williams died, of course. Robin Williams and my mom were the same age when they succumbed. Too young. Not that there's any age that's old enough. Certainly Teresa's 31 was far too young. So much talk of whether and how a suicide can be prevented. If the rich with every resource at their disposal cannot find peace, how can the average Joe or Jane or Teresa? Now we find out Robin Williams had Parkinson's and maybe that was why he did it. But does that really matter? Perhaps. Really, it only matters if it matters to the people who are left behind. If it makes it easier to accept or understand. Teresa I comprehend somewhat if only because she had delusions and she lost her mother six months prior to losing herself. My mom? I've contemplated her choice exhaustively. I've written her poetry. I've forgiven myself, or at least tried. She does not need forgiveness. They say anger is a stage of the grieving process. Perhaps. But with these losses the only anger I felt and feel is towards myself. The only failures I consider are my own.

Oh, I wish I knew my sister better. We were not close as young girls. Well, we were never close, really. She was too glamorous and rebellious. I was too square. But when we were older there was at least a desire for closeness. The moments of connection.

Life was hard for Teresa, I think. Always. Her choices were not what my parents, not what society, wanted or approved. How much of that was the early onset of addiction and how much was just her basic being I do not know. I know how to treat chemical dependency (at least a little). But that does not mean I understand it. I don't know where the person ends and the disease begins. I know it has served no purpose for me to try to tease them apart with the people I have tried to help. Somewhere in the process the disease gets the advantage. And breaking free of that enslavement is the hardest, bravest thing I've ever watched a person do. Teresa did it too, for awhile. And it was beautiful.

Teresa loved music. And in that we are alike. Ron wrote a song about her. And had me perform it.

Cheap umbrella, slowing down the rain
I can't remember my own name
All these people I thought were gonna stay
Somehow their faces fade away
I can't find no angel beside me here tonight

So I'm going down to paradise, going down to paradise
God saved my soul, the devil spent it twice
And I'm going down, going down, going down to paradise.

I wanna be somewhere won't do me any harm
Wish I was in my mother's arms
My way of thinking don't do me any good
I sure would change it if I could
And I feel forsaken.
I can't do this any more.

So I'm going down to paradise, going down to paradise
God saved my soul, the devil spent it twice
And I'm going down, going down, going down to paradise.

On a platform waiting for a train
Looking for someone else to blame
All I need is a blanket where I lay
And just one more yesterday
Relieve my sorrow as I turn my head around

Then I'm going down to paradise, going down to paradise
God saved my soul, the devil spent it twice
And I'm going down, going down, going down, going down, going down, going down, going down to paradise.

Oh Teresa. How I wish you could have stayed.

A Gratitude Snapshot

So, as Christmas gifts, my sister Eliza gave her sisters (and a few friends) journals that she had decorated in some fashion with sayings/ideas we had identified as "beacons" for the coming year. And we are to start every day with a list of 10 things we love and end every day with a list of 10 things for which we are grateful. I started strong, but two-and-a-half months in, a few days have passed now and again with no entries at all. Part of this is owing to me leaving the slimmest of margins for getting ready for work in the morning and pushing myself well beyond a reasonable bed time far too often at night.

It's a good practice, though. I'm noticing how many things come up again and again on my love list. The gratitude list I try to focus on events of the day-- mindfulness of the moment. Mostly I have not struggled for that list of 10.

So, though it's been nearly a third of a year since I've written a blog post (le sigh), I decided tonight I would make my gratitude list public. If there is an order it would be chronological. But mostly it's just whatever has struck me or stuck with me from the day and often one thought triggers remembering something else.

I am grateful...
-for waking up with both my cats curled up on or beside me. They are such faithful companions.
-for a congestion-light commute in and an unusually quick commute home.
-to have a job I do not dread going to every morning.
-for the windows on our floor that let in so much light and allow me to see the sunny blue skies.
-for temperatures that allowed me to take the first walk of the year during which I had to worry neither about falling on my butt nor freezing it off.
-that I am healthy enough to be able to walk. Forward motion. Long strides. Good for the soul.
-that I live in a place where I can walk alone after dark and not feel unsafe, which I know is a luxury so many people do not enjoy.
-for my sister who likes to cook and share her food with others and is good at it.
-that I have friends of all ages and from such a wide array of backgrounds, each of whom is intelligent and real and fighting the good fight. And I got to have dinner with one of them tonight.
-for music. always.

So, there it is. The walk tonight did me so much good after such a very long winter . I was moving at a respectable clip. I wonder whether walking, particularly when done just for the sake of feeling your legs carry you forward, is different depending on height. I cover a lot more ground in one step than my 4" shorter sister. But does it feel the same to her? I surely hope so.