The Loss of a Sister
...eciate my sister more. She said, “At least you have a sister”. Of course, I would shrug it off and ignore her comment. I would think to myself, on more than one occasion I might add, I wish I was one of those people who didn’t.” I hate to admit it, my mother was right. I don’t know what I would have done without my sister when we moved from Baltimore in 1990 to the Eastern Shore during my senior year in high school. All we had was each other. We didn’t know a single person at school. I think that was the best medicine that could of ever been prescribed for our relationship. We spent most of our time together before school, after school and on the weekends; even though, I initially thought of it as something to pass the time until something or someone better came along. I soon found myself wanting to be with my sister rather than hanging out with my new found friends. She allowed me to be myself whenever we were together. I didn’t have to put on an act or be something that I wasn’t for her to like me or want to be with me. She looked up to me anyway. As we got older our relationship developed into a best friendship. When my sister joined the Navy in 1996, we became separated for the first time, but only by distance. Before she left for her duty station in North Carolina, we made a promise to each other that we wouldn’t let anyone or anything come between us. We couldn’t do anything about the distance. I found it overwhelmingly hard to deal with the fact that she was stationed in North Carolina, and that we were no longer able to see each other everyday. The very thought of anything or anyone ever coming between us was inconceivable. I would never dream of entertaining such an idea, not even for a second. Unfortunately, on August 19, 2004, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. It only took one person to destroy the familiar relationship that I held so dear. I wasn’t even given the courtesy of a warning and no one ever asked my permission. I was awakened by the forceful shaking of my leg. My husband was standing at the foot of our bed shaking my leg, trying to wake me. I heard him talking to someone on the telephone. I assumed it was one of his employees from the plant. He often gets calls at odd hours of the night because he is an operations manager at a power plant in New Jersey, so it didn’t really seem odd to me except for the fact that he was waking me up. I looked over at the clock and noticed that it was 4:07am. I still had no idea to whom he was speaking but I quickly figured out that it didn’t have anything to do with work. He shook me one last time and said , “Are you awake, babe, it’s your mom. You need to take this call, it’s about your sister.” Hearing those words, coupled with the look on his face, instantly I felt as if I was going to vomit because the only thought I had swimming around in my head was that my sister was dead. I was thinking the worst possible thing imaginable, only to realize, in fact, that there are far worst things than death. When my mother started to speak, I could tell that she had been crying. She told me that she had just gotten off the phone with Christy, my sister’s girlfriend and that I had to get up because something happened to my sister. In a million years I would have never thought that the words, your sister was just beaten and raped, would come out of my mother’s mouth to me. She said it happened at roughly 2am and the only other information that she has is that she was out with some friends from work. She said that she’d been trying to reach me, but no one would answer the phone. My mother asked me if it would be ok if she put me on 3-way with my sister because the only person she wanted to talk to was me. I managed to get out a yes in the mist of my crying. When Christy answered the phone, I flooded her with questions. How bad is she hurt physically? Did she tell you what happened? Who was Heather with before it happened? Was she drinking? How did you find out about it? Christy didn’t really know much more about what had happened than my mother or I did. Although she was unable to answer most of my questions, she tried. She told me that my sister wouldn’t talk to her about anything or go to the hospital until she talked to me. I apparently was the only person my sister wanted to talk to. I definitely wasn’t prepared for what I was about to hear. The person trying to speak on the other end of the phone was not my sister; I didn’t know who she was because she definitely didn’t sound like my sister. She sounded like a weak, vulnerable, frightened child. She was crying so uncontrollably that I couldn’t make out a single word she was trying to say. I managed to decipher a statement that she kept repeating over and over again, “I gotta take a shower and it will be all right.” Of course I told her that she couldn’t take a shower until after she went to the hospital. And again, she just kept repeating the same thing. As I tried to talk to her, I assured her that everything would be ok, and that I loved her. She started to speak a little more clearly, and I was able to understand what she was saying. She spoke of the excruciating pain that was coming from her hand, her anus and her vagina. I quickly changed the subject back to the hospital. I told her how important it was that she go to the hospital. I told her that I would drive down to North Carolina to be with her on one condition. That she would go to the hospital. I told her that if she didn’t go, I wouldn’t come down to see her. I felt awful about ...