I am so thankful to have my husband to help me deal with this. We decided that we could not let her come back to the house because she wouldn't admit to the drinking. I made so many phonecalls asking for help and it was unanimous that if we said she couldn't stay if she drank then we had to stick to it. I would not have been able to. My husband calmly spoke to her and tried to explain. He offered to drive her where ever she needed to go and bring her stuff to her. Her reaction was explosive. It tears away at my soul to be a part of this explosion. Why can't I just love her and keep her safe? Why can't it be enough?

The ripples from the stone we have cast will impact so many, especially my mom. I feel scared for my mom. She does not have a husband to help her make and follow through on these decisions. Her guilt is so wrapped in my sister's recovery. She is so vulnerable to attack and my sister knows this. Sometimes she brags about making my mom cry. She always calls her and always relies on her but it is as if she feels she must synonamously torture her for every kind thing my mother does for her. I know my sister feels my mom is to blame for her illness because she was ill for all those years, completely entombed by depression. My sister simply cannot see the irony in what she is doing to my mother. She feels so justified. Even before she got sick, she was so good at emotionally terrorizing my mother. And indeed my mom must shoulder the credit for emotionally terrorizing us as children - her hopelessness so interwoven with her parenting. And now my mom wears this guilt like a winter coat - scratchy and heavy - and it must be worn on even the warmest of days. I worry what vengance my sister will take out on my mother. I worry that if my sister never recovers, neither will my mom. And I worry that I will never get over this worry - it sits on my chest when I wake up, it pulls me back from enjoying my life and creating new roads on which to wander. I am not the same person I was. And even though I do not have any mental illness, I mind feels sick and slow. 

I want to save her. I won't lie - it is for selfish reasons. I could not save my Father. I always thought "if only..." when I think of my Dad's suicide. If only I had spoken to him in 4 years. If only he had seen his Grandchildren and been connected to them. If only I had known I could have said just the right thing....

I am no fool about about my "If only"s. I know that the sound of my voice or the promise of something better would not have brought my Father back from the brink, however painful that is to admit. But when you never get the chance you always wonder. You wonder what would I have done if I had a crystal ball. What would I have done differently the day before, the week before, the years before? Would I have been so mad at him? Would I have just swallowed my pride knowing what I now know? Would I have been kinder and gentler? 

And so you see where this is going. I KNOW where my sister is headed. I know her choice is to die. She is not so bold as to throw a rope over the rafter like my Father but she is walking each step in death, making decisions that bring her closer. She will not choose to live even as she cannot bring herself to make her die. She is in limbo and I know it. What can I do differently? What words will penetrate her winter coat wrapped around her like a tomb? When I won't let her stay here even as she begs, do I walk her closer to death? How can I have been through this with my Father with no choice only to be in the exact same position now but with more time and foreshadowing than my Father's sudden and suprising death. This is like watching him die but in slow motion. Re-living every experience, worried of the impact of every word, every experience. Worried if I am too nice she will take advantage of me and manipulate me. Worried if I am too mean, she will wander straight to death's arms. Worried, worried, worried. It never stops.

People tell me that nothing I do can change how she lives. But she tells me all the time that I am responsible. She tells me that by being healthy and successful that I am contributing to her demise. She says that my reluctance to just give to her makes her less motivated to stay. I think sometimes she doesn't mean it. I think when she is well she will say she is sorry and that she loves me and admires my courage to stay strong - like the last time she got well. When we forged such a  deep and loving friendship based on my stance to resist her impulses. She hugged me and said she was grateful for that. We had two years in which we cast all that worry aside. And now she goes back to even then and tears it apart telling me all the things she hated about me even then in our joy. She goes back to her first signs of illness and tells me how I contributed, how I was responsible. The things she tells people about me now make me want to cry until I can't see anymore. I am a bitch, a heartless fucking asshole. I think I am being nicer here than she is in her descriptions. 

I beg my dead father to bring his spirit to her and soothe her. I don't know if I believe in such things but I am desperate. There seems to be nothing on earth that will soothe her. But he doesn't come. And I am left rotting in their wake.