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.
