Estrangement- Part 1

I've been writing this post for two months now and after recent events I realize I need to finish it. Recently I've been avoiding everything as I sulk with my fears about my sister Nicole. Now I feel that its time to finish this post (& hopefully heal somewhat so I can move on with my life).

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.

quick somber update

I have this plan for a massive Ireland write up (which I still haven't given up hope on), however I feel like I should write a quick note. Right now its either the medication I'm on or the heat (perhaps both), making me lazy. However there have been some updates in my life aside from my trip, which was more amazing than I could ever have anticipated by the way, that I feel I must write about. So this will be a quick somber post.

Last Friday, June 26th, my aunt Karen O'Sullivan died. Before I left I knew that she had been told she had only 3 months left to live as her breast cancer has spread throughout her body. I was not prepared for the news of her passing as I sat in the Newark airport Monday talking to Mom to kill time before my next flight. I only really remember Karen from the O'Sullivan family reunion when I was in high school, I believe I was only about 16 at the time. I remember her amazing smile & the ease I felt talking to her. Mostly due to the distances separating us all, I'm not very close to the O'Sullivan side of the family. Karen was one of my aunts & uncles that really stood out among the rest & I always remember with great affection.

The other sad news I was greeted with that day is that Grandpa O'Sullivan, my last remaining grandparent, definitely has cancer. At the moment I'm not even quite sure how to put into words what I feel. So all I can say is that I hope for him what I hoped for the rest of my grandparents who have passed away. That if this means his time on this earth is soon coming to an end, that it will a painless as possible.

A Barrage of Updates

Yesterday afternoon turned out to be a bit more intense than I expected. When I got home from work, Ry mentions that Mom called & wants to talk to me. A little time passes, Ry tells me again, that I really should call Mom. He then hineds that something is up with Grandpa O'Sullivan.

When I finally do call her, oh my gods, it was one hell of an update. Now before I proceed, I should point out that many of the details I'm a bit iffy on. My mind was quickly overwhelmed as Mom filled me in. Plus, Mom was a little out of it herself as she was fasting in anticipation of a colonoscopy today.

My Grandpa is in hospital right now. He had fallen a few times & there something is wrong with his lower back. They're waiting to hear back from the doctor about him, but it seems like he might be getting in his final years. He is also my last remaining grandparent as his wife died during my senior year at Reed and last year I lost my both my grandparents on my mother's side. Fuck.

My aunt Karen (who is married to my dad's eldest brother Tim), has only 3 months to live. She has been battling breast cancer for many years but appears to be losing that battle. She had been in remission for a few years but now the cancer is back and has spread throughout her body. This sadly is almost exactly what happened to my aunt Shirley (mother's side of the family), who died at the start of my sophomore year at Reed.

We had all hoped that Karen was going to make it through this recent reemergence. While I'm not particularly found of her husband, I've always really liked her. Tim, who I usually refer to as "that asshole born-again-christian uncle", once told Mom she was a bad mother because Ry & I weren't raised in any church. Though he didn't like the Catholic church, he said it would have been better than nothing at all. Can't help but wonder how he'd feel if he knew I was a bisexual borderline-atheist with pagan leanings, not to mention pro-choice socialist. Anyways, Karen is wonderful and one of the few family members on that side of the family I really like. Plus her & my mom are somewhat close. So yeah, fuck.

My uncle Rick's, another one of my dad's brothers, brain tumor has re-emerged. He had it removed many years ago, but its back. Can't recall how series this tumor is, but it's a brain tumor so once again, fuck.

Now for the bizarre part of these updates. Just a shy 2 hrs before Mom & Dad got the call about everything going on with the O'Sullivan family, my parents realized they had been robbed. All but 15 of their DVDs were taken. Not their laptop computers, which were sitting in the living room with the DVDs. Nor their digital camera, which is only a few years old. Nope, nothing in the house was taken. Just almost all of the box sets of series like Carnival, Lost, The Tudors, Sopranos. Not to mention my copy of Firefly I had lent to them. Another strange thing about robbery, for the most part all but the 1st season of these series was taken. They still have the 1st season of Lost & Sopranos (maybe others but thats all I can recall Mom mentioning).

We all feel like this had to be someone in the family, someone with a key to the house. While there are a few suspects, I do not feel comfortable posting that here. At least not until we have proof. But since nothing but the DVDs were taken, I think its clear that this has to be, as they say, "an inside job." My parents have since then replaced their locks and are currently trying to find the theif.

This concludes the barrage of updates I got from my mother yesterday. All yesterday evening my head was spinning with a million thoughts (& some worries about other thing I can't talk about here). I'm still "processing" a lot of this. The O'Sullivan side of the family isn't one that I'm very close to. This is mostly due to the fact that they are spread throughout the country. Still, they are family nonetheless & the news about Grandpa, Karen & Rick is upsetting.

So yeah, fuck, fuck, & fuck.