My Sister’s Abandonment

It is with great sadness that I tackle this issue and I open it up with this caveat: these words are written from my memory and they are my point of view. I do not claim them to be neither true or false, they are my memories and memories can very often be skewed or fuzzy. But please respect that they are my memories none-the-less.

Abandonment is such a common theme in my life but its never been more unresolved for me than it is with my own sister; my full blooded sister that shares both my mother and my father.

I guess I should start with when we lived in Venezuela. My sister is 13 years my senior, so as the surprise baby, she was like a second mother to me. My mother had had a lot of issues with the losses of the boys and then issues in her marriage that made it very difficult for her to be there for me.  So my sister took that torch in many ways. I remember when ever I had a nightmare, it wasn’t my parents’ bedroom that I would run to, it was my sister’s. She’d curl up with me and make any bad dreams I had instantly disappear. We were very close for the age difference between us.

As I grew up and the problems in my parent’s marriage were increasingly apparent, my sister’s anger with my father turned dark, ugly. What I believe was the catapult to that deep-seeded hate was the fact that my mother, while protecting me, never really protected my sister. This was my mother’s biggest mistake and its one that has caused my sister a lot of pain; unbeknown to both of them. Its not like my mother meant to include my sister in these arguments and discussions, its not like she knew the effect it would have on her.

From a young age, I would say 10-11 years old, my sister had become my mother’s best friend, her confidant. And when you see your mother cry in her room alone, you as a child want to comfort her. It was a natural occurrence that any child would instinctively feel. I did the same thing for my mother after the divorce when I was roughly 11-12, so I know exactly how that feels. The difference is my mother had learned to shield me from the events that were causing her these tears… a lesson learned too late to really spare my sister.

Where it differed was that my mother took my sister into her confidence and told her that my father was repeatedly cheating on her, that he had taken many lovers throughout the course of their marriage. That some of those lovers meant to hurt our family; both physically and mentally. For a girl that was 14-15-16, this surely had a profound effect on how my sister related to my father and her opinions of men in general.

My sister had also had a boyfriend in Venezuela; someone she had fallen desperately in love with and wanted to marry. I remember bits and pieces of this guy, not too much. I do remember that my father did not approve of that relationship; he thought her too young. Honestly at 17-18 she really was too young. And when they broke up as my sister was heartbroken and depressed, it was really only my mother that comforted her.

We were also dealing with a myriad of events that I just couldn’t understand but they were profoundly affecting my family. One in particular was a woman that hailed from the Dominican Republic that claimed to be my father’s mistress. This woman wanted my father for herself and would stop at nothing to get him. She would send my mother threatening letters and calling the house warning her that she would hurt her children if she didn’t leave my father to be with her. This woman, and I know many might not believe it, resorted to black witchcraft to exact her anger upon us and her main target had been my sister. I am not sure that she did anything to me, I am not sure she even knew about me. I just knew that I didn’t understand fully.

My most vivid memory of this woman’s supposed powers was when we woke up one morning to find black nails that had been hammered into the wall above my sister’s bed in a very distinct pattern. How they got there, I will never know. I remember it really freaked my father out. He ran fast and fast can be to hammer them out of this wall. One by one the nails came out, and they weren’t just any nails…. they looked old, like the ones used in crucifixions. Spooked doesn’t even begin to cover it.

To get away from all that mess and pursue new opportunities, we moved to the United States. Once we got here, I definitely saw that my sister had deep-seeded issues with my father. The two were oil and vinegar and very explosive. The fights were so horrible, I would hide in the closet of my room. I am not even sure my sister knew how bad the fights were or considered that I at age 6-7-8 could hear everything.

The fights were usually centered around the same things — my sister’s educational path, her choice in friends, what she was doing with her friends, her love of music (which my father absolutely abhorred). It was so repetitive that I can still tell you in detail exactly what each fight was about and both opposing views.

The biggest of these was my sister’s desire to study music and music theory. She desperately wanted a career in the music business; even from early on. We all knew she had incredible, natural talent that if developed could have huge potential. I honestly do believe that my father agreed with that point of view, but his concern was the big “what if”. What if it doesn’t work? Then what? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Having reconnected (barely) with my sister, I can tell you that my father surely was 100% right. She should have thought about plan B and I think that’s really all my father had ever wanted her to do. She didn’t see it that way.

Instead of embracing that, my sister chose to rebel against it. And that she did. She would go out until all hours of the night, irresponsibly drinking and hanging out with the worst people possible. She dropped out of the nursing program she had agreed to enroll in at Broward College, which my father once again gave her shit for. She started hanging out with Gabriel, a guy that rode motorcycles and was your typical “bad boy”… although he really wasn’t. But to my dad, I am sure the leather and tats and love of motorcycles really stereotyped him as such. Rebels without a cause… that was his thought.

One evening she got herself into a really bad situation in where my father had to come get her. I think that night was the night my sister was “date” raped. I use the word date loosely because I do not think she had a date with anyone, it was a group of people — most of whom she did not know well at all — that got really drunk, and possibly the perpetrators were into the use of Rohypnol (now known as Roofies and famous for date rapes).  My father did not believe her, at first. He thought she willingly gave herself up and then couldn’t handle the situation and needed an excuse. After all, isn’t that what rebels do?

This event only served to increase her hate towards him. I don’t blame her. I was too young to know what was really going on, I didn’t find out about all this until my father and I went to therapy. I can say this, it was one of his biggest regrets and he had many. He did not like the way he had handled the whole thing and he definitely believed that his daughter had been taken advantage of in a manner that no woman should be. It was this retelling of the story that brought about one of the biggest secrets my father had kept. But she never stuck around long enough to hear that from the man himself. For her, in her mind, her father had failed to protect her and didn’t love her. That hurt, that pain, manifests in anger and hate.

When my mother found a church she really could invest in, my sister went with her. It was probably one of the few things that my sister really could engage in and be part of that had little to no repercussion. Here she could sing. It was the creative outlet she needed and the faith she needed. I am glad to say that has probably always been a foundation for both of us. My mother’s greatest gift to us was a love for the Lord.

It was at this church that we met another Catholic family much like our own.  Their eldest daughter was named Miriam. A friendship between my sister and Miriam grew. They really grew to be best friends. They were pretty inseparable from early on.  At some point, because of familial problems, Miriam moved into our house with my mother and sister. My parents had already gotten divorced by this time, but only a short time ago. Miriam became more than a best friend to my sister. She took on the role of supporter and also manager for her budding music career. Seemingly at first, everything was fine. Or so we thought.

Slowly and eventually… we lost my sister to her. I know my mother felt that way, and I know I felt that way too. My father started to warm my mother about her bad influence this girl was having on their daughter. He suggested to my mother that Miriam might be a lesbian. This was something my mother would find very foreign, as she had never dealt with something like that before. She vehemently denied this to him, turning against him. “How could you think that about our daughter? Even if Miriam is, our daughter has had boyfriends. She could not be a lesbian.” I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. I was 14.

This my sister saw as a threat to her existence. Once again my father was against her trying to hurt her, I am sure that’s how it seemed to her. The control that Miriam had over my sister was deep. I don’t think my sister ever, at least at that time, realized just how much control Miriam had and that my father was the first to realize it. And the more he pushed the issue, the more Miriam spewed her venom — even against me, against my mother. My mother and Miriam finally had it out, in our kitchen and hallway. She asked Miriam to leave her house as soon as possible. I honestly do not think that my mother ever thought my sister would go with her. But that’s exactly what she did. She never even looked back at her younger sister standing there wondering what the hell is going on.

This is where the breakdown between my mother, myself, and my sister started happening. It is really when I began to feel that she was abandoning us. I feel that now my sister is in denial about this fact, she cannot see that everything wasn’t picture perfect between her and me and my mom.  My mom always loved her, welcomed her with open arms, invested in her, supported her dreams, everything that a good mom should do… but she was never ever comfortable with Miriam around.

I remember my father would sometimes eat lunch or dinner with us. And the conversations that took place during some of these meals centered heavily around my sister. Mostly about how much influence Miriam had and who was running their business and who was collecting the checks and who was on the lease of their apartment and so on and so forth. My father could have guessed most of the answers to that, but these questions didn’t come from him. They came from my mother who was probably too fearful of losing her daughter entirely. So they would discuss what to do, and my father would throw ideas out and my mother would rebuff him, “That’s not going to work. It will push her further away.”

To me at 14-15, it seemed to me that everyone was more concerned about my sister. I became very unimportant. To fill that void, I started to spend a lot of my time with a boy that lived several houses down from me. His name was Lucas. He was also going through very hard times, which I will talk about later, but our connection was instant, undeniable, and to my father, mother, and sister… unhealthy.  Even though, as it turns out Luke was not only the love of my life, but no one has ever loved me better. He became my first husband. More on that later…

When we found out that my mother had cancer, ovarian cancer stage 4, the animosity was still very prevalent in the household. You could cut the tension with a knife. I would never deny the fact that my sister was devastated to hear the bad news, not even for a second. I know she was scared to loose our mother. But for me, with what I remember, she simply was not there. She once again abandoned me. And today she’ll say to me, “Well I had to run my daycare business.” Yes, I agree, but don’t you think that your partner would have said… “I got this, go be with your mom.” She would have if she had really wanted that for you. I don’t think Miriam ever truly wanted that for her, I don’t think she ever wanted my sister to see my father in any other light than the enemy. Instead my father semi-retired and was there almost 7 days a week from 7 am to midnight, sometimes sleeping on the family room couch.

Today, my sister would say, “Well he felt guilty for all he had done to her.” and while I agree that may be so, the possibility never enters her mind that simply maybe my father did love my mother, maybe not “in love” with her but loved her as the mother of his 4 children, 2 surviving. And that maybe, just maybe, he felt a paternal responsibility to his 16 year old daughter who had just suffered through a traumatic abortion not 6 months before, more on that later, to help her through the reality that her mother was slowly, everyday, dying right before her very eyes. That’s never a thought in my sister’s mind. Because she cannot let him have one ounce of decency, one ounce of goodness. To her, he’s evil incarnate. But none-the-less to me, for whatever reason he may have had, he did take care of my mother very diligently with the help of my aunts Teña and Chela, who also took turns to live with us to help care for their sister.

I saw my sister maybe 3 or 4 times in the months after my mother’s diagnosis, surgery, and subsequent chemotherapy. If she came to pick her up and drive her somewhere, she would drop her off and barely spend any time there. She has a completely different memory of these events, but then in the same sentence will say “Well I had to run my daycare business.” So which one was it?  I was the one that had to see my mother slowly deteriorate every single day with my sister no where in sight; abandoned once more.

I saw my father bathe her, clothe her, read to her, feed her, tell her jokes, tell her stories of their young life in Panama, help her to the bathroom, hell he wiped her butt — everything. That was my father that did that. Not my sister, not me, not anyone else. Who else could have picked my mother up to take her to the bathtub upstairs? Certainly not my aunts nor me. For that, my father earned his forgiveness from me and I think even from my aunts. But my sister never really saw that because she didn’t want to see it. Or maybe because Miriam didn’t want her to see it either.

My father tried his hardest to let my mother fight this cancer with dignity, surrounded by the people she loved the most. Unfortunately, that was not always easy. My mother had started to loose her mind from the effects of the chemotherapy. One late afternoon, my aunt Teña had the worst time trying to get her to eat. She wouldn’t eat. She started to say she felt hot and to remedy that she started taking her clothes off.  We couldn’t keep them on her. My aunt called my dad right away because my mom was getting very irate. By the time my father got there, my mom had been outside naked — completely naked. A neighbor called the cops. My father rushed to get a gown for her and went to cover her up when the cops arrived. I was sitting on the porch steps hysterically crying. My dad was trying to get her to come back in the house. The cops were pretty awful, had no patience. We told them she has cancer and is on chemotherapy. They questioned my mom, but she couldn’t give them any answers — she didn’t even know who I was, nor my who my aunt was. Because of this, they called the medics and she was taken away for evaluation. Since my father was no longer married to her, he couldn’t do anything. The diagnosed her with schizophrenia and locked her up in a state mental hospital. I cannot tell the depths of my despair. My father and aunt Teña called my aunt Chela to return from Panama. We tried to call my sister, but she wouldn’t talk to my dad. Like at all! Again, I was forgotten about. I truly believed my sister just did not love me anymore.

When my mother was rushed to the regular hospital the day of her death for pneumonia, since that mental hospital couldn’t really care for her properly since she was on full chemotherapy, I was in school. When my father’s wife dialed my beeper with the code 9-1-1, I immediately called her back and she told me which hospital she was at.  I rushed over to the hospital and they had my mother on ventilators. She wasn’t coming back and they urged us to say goodbye.

I remember bits and pieces of this day. I know my mother’s best friends Noemi and Hiede were there. I remember my father was there. I remember my sister was there, with Miriam and another friend of hers. I can’t remember her name now. I remember that my father asked to be with her by himself as I watched through the window of the ICU room. My dad stroked her hair and whispered in her ear and held her hand. Then he came out and told me that “Mommy was going to heaven real soon.” and that I needed to let her know I would be okay and that she could go in peace. So I went in there and I couldn’t’ say much through my sobs. I wanted her to stay, I wanted her to wake up and be like “Why are you all standing there crying?” But I knew that wouldn’t happen.

My sister and Miriam and this other lady went in there afterwards and so did her best friends. And then we all sat in the waiting room. The doctor came out and announced to us that she had passed. My sister in the throws of despair, pointed straight at me and said, “You killed her.” I will never forget that. She abandoned me yet again in that moment. She made me hate her in that very instance. She put it in me that I was guilty of something completely out of my control. I remember Noemi yelling at her, my aunt Teña yelling at her and my aunt Chela sitting with her head in her hands. My father finally went off on her, yelling at her all kinds of obscenities. They had to ask us to leave the hospital. I went with my father, as I was barely 17 and still a minor. My aunts went back to the house and I don’t know where my sister went.

In the week after my mother’s death, my sister took it upon herself to change the locks of my mother’s house, while I was still living there and my aunts still had their belongings in there. It was like we were all instantly her enemies; not just my father. My aunts couldn’t even get their suitcases out of the house. I remember I turned to Luke (my best friend that lived only a few houses from me) to figure out a way to get into my house. It was kind of challenging since my father didn’t like him and yet there they both were. I think it was Luke that suggested we call the cops to document this. As a lawful dweller of the home, I had the rights to access it. So the cops said I could call a locksmith to come grant us access to the home and they would stay until we could get our stuff out of the home, and my cat Binki. I knew that there was an unlocked window that led into my bedroom, I remember Luke and I discussing that. My father of course was none too happy to hear that Luke and I would sneak into each others’ rooms. But I did manage to get access to the house. I let my aunts in and they got their suitcases together.  I remember packing my clothes in garbage bags and Luke and my dad both helping to bring them down. I remember going into my mother’s closet and finding her favorite black dress and taking that with me. I also distinctly remember grabbing one picture of her when she was younger from the mantle of the piano-organ. I grabbed my cat and closed the door. I was never able to go back to the house after that.

My father put both my aunts up in a nearby hotel and a few days later we drove them to the airport. It would be the last time I ever saw them alive, as they are both now deceased. And after that my sister never called or talked to my dad or even asked about me. She dropped me like I had never meant a thing to her. She had been convinced that my father was after some sort of payout from my mother’s estate that my mother did not know about or was somehow shady. But what she failed to see was that my mother absolutely not only knew about the life insurance but encouraged it because she knew that my father would have to raise me and put me through college. Its not that she didn’t think about my sister, but more like she didn’t see the financial responsibility to raise me falling onto anyone other than my father. And I feel that’s as it should be.

In all my sister walked away with everything that was in the house, my mother’s furniture, pictures, family movies, jewelry, clothes… I mean everything.  She never contacted me to come share in those memories, yet I was the one that had been living with my mother until her death. She never once thought, “Oh Marisabel should have this.” about anything in that house — from my own belongings such as my awards and accolades in skating to my stuffed animals to my toys or collections that I had in my first bedroom. Nothing. Not a single thing. I wanted to suit her for inappropriate misconduct of probate disposition, but my father refused to do that. Noting that she was still in fact his daughter and he would never allow that. What he did do is cut her out of his will, exclusively and entirely.

And so began my horrible life in a house with my then step monster (I cannot ever give that woman the title of mother, in any way shape or form, ever) that treated me like an inconvenience in her life and would tell my father so many horrible things about me; mostly untrue things to turn him against me. I ended up with 3 suicide attempts at the hands of my mother’s death. I had no one to help me grieve or cope. My sister left me there to rot when I needed her the most. I felt like trash; thrown away trash. And when you feel that way, you go out seeking others that feel the same way too and what ensues is utter chaos.

In that desperation, my father’s abuse grew to intolerable levels, so much so that HRS was called after the last incident and they even tried to contact my sister, but they marked the file as “failed to respond”. She never responded to their inquiries; she simply vanished. The only person that could have ever saved me was the one person that my family did not like or approve of — Lukey.  As broken as he was, he saved me in every way a person could be saved. Physically, emotionally, mentally … he saved me.

I am not sure I have ever in my life recovered from feeling like one of the most important people in my life, my own sister who I loved so much as a child, who I thought as and looked up to as a second mother to me, completely and utterly abandoned me at age 17. How do you get over it? Especially when she still to this day continues to abandon you every chance she gets. When phone calls, letters, hopes of maybe seeing a therapist, or going to a retreat to heal these wounds are continuously and repeatedly turned down or ignored, what do you do? I feel like I am always the only one that keeps trying. For her, she could care less. She shows our cousins in Panama who she hardly ever goes to see or really talks to much more love than me… her own sister.  God knows what she tells them about me in the few times she does talk to them.

I guess we shall see when I go see them myself. Because I’ve been working on regaining my proof of citizenship for 7 years now and I finally got that straightened out. So I have a brand new U.S. Passport that I need to put to good use.  Maybe I find healing with my mother’s family instead of with my own sister; that’s my hope.

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