I haven't spoken to my sister Nicole in 7 months, not since the week after Thanksgiving. We had a falling out after the death of our Grandfather and the fact that she stole pain medication from as he was dying. The reality that I've been struggling with about my sister is that she is a drug addict. She has lied and stolen from almost everyone in the family. Up until the event surrounding Grandpa's death... I had been able to retain some faith in her. But after everything that happened... I could no longer believe in her anymore.
The last time we spoke was one of the most ugly conversations I've ever had with her. I had this foolish notion that I'd calmly tell her how I was angry with her because she stole pain medication from our dying Grandfather. In my mind, this would have been a simple statement of my feelings... the reality was utterly horrible. Within seconds I found myself yelling at the top of my lungs, all the anger pent of over the years spilling out. It wasn't just anger, it was fear and grief as well. Grandpa had only been dead for a few weeks and I hadn't even began to really mourn him. Still, my grief wasn't just for him, it was for Nicole as well. I knew then, even if only vaguely, that my relationship to my sister would never be the same.
Despite being the younger sister, I have spent most of my life worrying about Nicole. Ever since I learned of the abuse she endured as a child from her father (we do not have the same father). Throughout the years, its only grown worse with time as I become ever more aware of the suicide attempts and drug addiction. It does not matter that she is my older sister by nine years, I feel like I have the burden of worry of an older sister. There is a part of me that cannot let go of the fear that I will out live her. That someday she will kill herself.
For many years as events would unfold with her, I always tried to be the comforting sister. Never saying anything that might make her feel like she couldn't talk to me, to the point of never actually speaking my opinion. I watched her lash out at my parents, saying extremely hurtful things filled with false accusations. To my shame, I would let many of these accusations go by with little defense for the falsely accused. I was so afraid of losing her confidence that I stayed silent about too many things.
This fear of losing her, of being estranged from her, has now come true. However it was not Nicole who drew away from me, but me from her. About a month before Grandpa health started to fail, I had my first moment of speaking up about her drug abuse. It was ugly for a time, but we did patch things up between us somewhat. I believed her then when she said she was clean, ignoring all my instincts saying otherwise. I so desperately wanted to believe in what she was telling me, that I tried to give her a benefit of a doubt when she told me she clean. Well, clean by her definition. I knew she still smoked pot but she insisted then that was the only drug.
Then Grandpa went into hospice care. He was in a great deal of pain before he died and therefore had a decent quantity of pain killers. Nicole had been helping take care of him and then stole a large quantity of pills and drank nearly half a bottle of liquid morphine. We found out when the hospice nurse asked about the missing drugs. The family confronted her & she did fess up to the theft. Gods, I'll never forget her reaction to my horror after she admitted that she drank from the morphine bottle.
"My gods Nicole, do you realize how easily you could have killed yourself? How dangerous that was?"
"Oh please Reanne, I've been doing drugs a long time. I know how to not OD"
Since Grandpa was dying and we all were too distracted with the grief of his passing (was well as Grandma who had only died 6 months prior), I held off on saying too much to Nicole. I was extremely hurt & angry that she could do such a thing. Though I now can recognize it as a sign of her addiction... it still breaks my heart that she could do something like that to our Grandparents. I suspect that she also stole drugs from my Grandma when she was dying... but I have no proof. All I know is that it was after Grandma died that Nicole started this recent downhill slide. Before then, really since she got clean when she was pregnant with Zoey, she had seem to finally get a hold of her life. Then Grandma died & I started to see small signs that lead me to believe she was using again.
There is still so much more to write... but I cannot do so right now. Tomorrow I shall try again to finish this.
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