My sister, Angela, would have turned 49 this past weekend.
I want to write something to honor her (like this post I wrote last year), but it gets all mixed up inside, tangled up with the memories of her mental illness.
I want to talk about what a wonderful sister she was and how much I loved her. But I never got to make that connection.
I want to tell you how we talked for hours about her struggles and I was able to ease her emotional pain. But we didn’t … and I didn’t.
I simply didn’t know how to reach beyond my fear of her illness to find a person there.
In fairness to me, I was just a kid. I was only in 7th grade that night I watched her break. A 7th grader sitting still-stunned the next day in Mr. McAllister’s science class. A 7th grader who still got a 100% on that quiz because I didn’t know what else to do.
But I’m not a kid anymore. And I now I know what I’d do. I would talk. I would talk to my family. I would talk to my friends. I would talk to my teachers. I would talk to my journal.
But mostly I would talk with Angela.
I would ask her how it felt to be a genius in an average world.
I would ask her if she got any joy from learning new languages as though they were always part of her.
I would ask her if she felt the music when she brilliantly but mechanically played the piano.
I would ask her how I could help, how I could understand.
And I would listen. Listen through the fear. Listen through the discomfort. Listen as long as I needed to in order to hear my sister instead of her illness.
Mental illness is unfair. It’s also unpredictable, often indescribable, and at times even unbearable.
So let’s fight back! Let’s talk. Let’s listen. Let’s Love.
