I have a foster sister whom I love dearly. She lived with us most of my childhood to age 15. I was the youngest, my biological sister two years older and Mari three years older than me. We, all three of us, had been raised very close knit and we remain that way today. I was in her wedding, she in mine and we talk every week as sisters and as friends.
As children, Lisa, my biological sister, and I were used to Mari’s comings and goings. When her Mom was “well”, she lived at home and when she became “ill”, Mari came to our house. That was our normal. While she was with us, we behaved as sisters do. Lisa, as the oldest, would enlist Mari, who was an only child, in torturing me since I was youngest and most fun to persecute. We would play board games and swimming games and hiding games and girl games together, all three of us. Mari and I would pretend that we were Mom and Dad and dress up in their clothes. Lisa would tell us ghost stories and when I fell asleep, Mari and Lisa would usually pull a prank on me.
The best prank they ever pulled was when I was about eight years old. They put an old alarm clock in my pajama bottoms and set the alarm for the middle of the night. The bell went off and I was panicked looking for it; chasing my own tail of course. They still talk about that one. I had my revenge, though. In high school, Mari was always the first one up to primp in our bathroom. Since she was used to getting up while it was still dark, Lisa and I decided to set her alarm for 10:30pm, just an hour after she went to bed. She got up and nearly got ready for school; our Mom stopped her and sent her back to bed. We still talk about that one, too.
But there were things we didn’t talk about. Partially because Lisa and I were pretty oblivious to WHY Mari would come and go from our house. We knew and liked her mother and knew that she sometimes became “ill”. We even knew what it was called. She was Manic-Depressive, my mother told us. I took that to be a very serious illness because of the way my mother said it. She also told us that Mari would tell us what she wanted to tell us and we should not push for more information. As the youngest, I had no idea what additional information Mari would have but also had no idea that I should be concerned about getting said information. So, there were no questions unasked due to general childhood oblivion.
As we grew up, we argued and laughed and hung out just like siblings. We didn’t dabble into what happened with Mari’s mom. Mari never seemed overly upset about anything. Unless Lisa and I fought, that was the only time that Mari acted peculiar. She would sit on the couch or on the stairs in a little bundle if Lisa and I were gnashing our terrible teeth at each other. God forbid it become a physical fight, Mari would practically ball herself up in the fetal position. I remember, I was probably in middle school, when I finally said, “Oh knock it off, we didn’t hurt YOU.” And Mari went to her room after saying, “Don’t get us in trouble.” Lisa and I decided Mari didn’t want to be grounded and we thought nothing more of it.
So, as adults we have talked a little more openly about Mari’s childhood. Certainly her version of time at our house is fairly consistent with ours. Although she missed out on most family holidays to be with her Uncle or her Grandma when her mom was sick; her family wanted to have her with them during those times. Another thing we came to just accept as normal. But I have learned so much more about what she endured.
She still won’t talk about everything. She and I are working on that; she wants to get some things out but is afraid of releasing the flood gates.
One event haunts me, though. She has told me that one of her earliest memories is when she was probably no more than four years old. Maybe younger than that. Her mother had begun a manic episode, and these often were accompanied by a flurry of activity, paranoia and wild accusations or actions. Often, in her manic episodes, Mari’s mom would marry a random man or run off to another town. Usually, she had the forethought to drop Mari with my Mom before the episode became too much. But when Mari was just a pre-schooler, she hadn’t planned ahead. The memory that Mari has shared with me is that of being in a bar, somewhere in Chicago. Her mother was screaming at the customers and became such a disturbance that they called the police. Mari, who was wrestled away from her mother in the struggle, watched as her mother was taken into a police car. She was left at the bar. Somehow, someway, she knew her Uncle’s telephone number and the bartender called him. He picked her up but she doesn’t remember that part of it. Her memory is just of her mother being driven away, screaming, and of being left behind.
Now, forty years later, that little girl has grown into an amazing woman. She has endured things I still cannot fathom and kept her sanity. I know that the fear that she had of getting in trouble at our house was one rooted in fear of abandonment. I know that her life’s dream is to feel a sense of security, safety and above all, love. I didn’t ask her what happened to her when we were kids, but really, none of it mattered because for all the unknowns, I know now what I knew naturally as a child; she is my lifelong friend and sister. I know that she was and is loved by me and that my family is her family all the days of our lives.
