The tragedy of my sisters death

The real tragedy of Sue's passing is it is hard to conceive of it as a tragedy. She lived as she chose and died the same way. A life of promise and hope ended as what, from where I sit, seems a sad, lonely, miserable, wasted life. But it was her choice. If you are looking for one of those “preach her into heaven, she is an angel” memories, this is not it. If you think there is going to be some heartwarming moment of reconciliation…you will be bitterly disappointed. My interactions with Sue in the last 3 or 4 decades of her life were almost universally awful. When I look at Sue’s life, I see little but disaster. The picture of her with her dogs was cool…it is the first legit smile I remember seeing on her since she was maybe 12. Nearly four decades of misery. It did not start that way of course. There are some home movies from back when we were in Illinois of her riding her trike, me dragging my bum on the ground on the back step. Back in Oregon, there were some great times. One of our favorite things to do growing up was going to Grandma Aldas and going swimming. The easy way to tell it was a 55 and older park was they had a Fanta soda machine. It was a super special treat when Mom, Sue and I would go to Grandmas, usually get pizza, go swimming, visit for a while, learn to play various versions of Rummy… In fact, another favorite family memory was going to the Organ Grinder. Watching the old black and white movies, hearing the Organ. There were a lot of smiles and laughs and love. Of course it didn’t last. School started pretty well. She went to Zatterbergs Kinder College a year ahead of me. Then a couple years at Montavilla Christian , then it became Crossroads. Our years in school give a clue as to how tragic her life became because it could have…and should have…been so different. To brag on her first I have to brag on me for a bit. The ACE system involves Paces. It took 12 paces to equate to a years worth of schooling. For people who exceeded the basic requirements you got a trophy at I think it was 40, 60, 75, 100 and “most in the school” or something along that line. At the end of the school year they had a ceremony where everyone who completed 40 paces got a trophy and there were several. Then those that finished 60 got one. Fewer. 75, maybe 3. 100 or more 2. In every subject I was exceeding 75 paces and most subjects 100. I was doing more than anyone else in the entire school by 25 or more paces. And Sue was doing that many more than me. When I say “everyone in the school” it really should read “everyone in the school except Sue who exceeded me at virtually every turn”. She was smart. She was really smart. Well, in 4th grade, for a variety of reasons the finances did not allow continuation of going to private school in Portland. So we were put into public school. This began the downhill slide. Oh, not right away. She started hanging out with different people. She got sneaky. Just one small example; my friend Carl and her friend Missy lived next door to each other. When it was time to come home, I was to leave Carls’, pick her up at Sue and we would walk home. Lets say curfew was 8. I would leave Carls at 7:50. 4 houses is not far to walk. Well, Sue would be like, “no, they don’t mean be home by 8, they mean leave at 8” and would stretch it out. I knew better but I went along with it. I could lay the blame on her if it came to that. Not a decision I was proud of…I was on my way to being a deceptive, manipulative, potentially dishonest person too. Well, that is minor and no big deal but things like that became a pattern. Like I mentioned she started hanging out with different people. Many of them were older and none of them were better people. She started smoking the occasional found cigarette, hanging out with much older people. When Mom and Dad would go out, she would sometimes have them over. They were old enough to drive…I was 11 or 12 which means she was no older than 13 or 14 at that point. Yep, we are heading that way. Sure enough, at some point Dad found out and forbid her from seeing these guys who were too old. Some of my siblings can tell you the name of the school counselors and teachers that caused the problems to get worse. They got her taken out of the home and placed with the older guy she wanted to sleep with. Things got worse. It became a legal matter with a lot of high powered attorneys involved and it was ugly. At one point they threatened to take me out of the home. Now, this is my reaction but there is no question it terrified me and impacted our relationship for the rest of our lives. I was in a caring loving home and knew it. Here were people threatening to take me away from my mom, dad and sisters because of my older sister who was doing stuff she shouldn’t? The lawyers working with Mom and Dad won and the counselor and those evil teachers were banned from contact. They should have spent decades in jail. The destruction they wreaked has carried on to other generations. I hope they found repentance because they were evil. Evil. Evil. It does not reflect well on me how things got between Sue and I after that. We argued and fought a lot. When I say fought, and it is to my shame…I mean punching, kicking type fights. I have mentioned the penultimate incident before…Sue, Carl, Missy and I were playing in Carls back yard. She incited me and I, being who I was, wrecked everything in my path. She got home first and if I recall correctly, that was the time I broke the front window. I think that was our last physical fight but we were certainly not the close friends we had been when younger. And her pattern of behavior was getting worse. I have long had a vivid memory of the time she had 3 boys in their early 20s over when Mom and Dad were at an appointment with the twins. There was alcohol involved, and boy she had it figured real close when they would be home and those boys taillights were going down LeMont street as Mom and Dad drove up 7th. I was no help to her during these years either. I was bitter, resentful and angry at her for nearly getting us pulled out of home. I despised her for her lies and her running around and her drinking. One day a friend was over for dinner. I don’t remember what started it but she and I must have been silently fighting at the dinner table. She started voicing disapproval and Mom & Dad, oblivious to the undercurrents, asked what was going on. She shouted in years, “he is looking at me”. We had reached a point in our relationship where I could anger her just by looking at her and where I could rejoice that she got in trouble for her reaction. My friend and I laughed about “the look” for a few months. Today I feel shame for it. If I had been a better brother would she have kept down the path she took? Probably. But I did very little to stop it and that lies at my feet. I am not responsible for her behavior…but I very much am for mine. And where it was shameful, like this, I am shamed and repentant. It was wrong and I wish I could change it. Once she got married and moved out I had only brief flashes of interactions with her for the rest of her life. And it did not make me sad. Because every time I did see her things got worse. I wanted to see her less than I did. A few years after she left, about the time she goaded some bad behavior from someone else that has led to their life being more difficult than it needed to be, it came to my attention she had made some horrific accusations against me. The first time I saw her after that we had a loud screaming match about it and by the end she admitted she lied and said it because she was mad. But she made no apology. In fact, she blamed me. For her lie and horrid accusation. I don’t remember seeing her from about the time I was 17 or 18 until Mom was on her death bed in 1995. I would hear dribs and drabs of info about her. None of them were good. I remember how badly Mom was hurt when Sue changed her name. She had been named for Mom…Paralee Suzanne. She changed her name. The story on why seems to have changed. I was there when she told Mom she changed it because she didn’t like it. I have seen the story that will appear at the memorial and it is much nicer. It is also much more recent. It was something that bothered Mom until the day she died, whether right or wrong she took it as a rejection and it hurt deep. Well, as some people know, Mom had a lengthy battle with various cancers. She spent the last few months of her life bedridden as the cancer ravaged her body. Moms friends gathered round. They were super helpful and a comfort. Then along came Hurricane Sue. Suddenly realizing her Mom was dying, she came charging back from California. She worked so hard and so obnoxiously to keep anybody but herself away from Mom that one of Moms two closest friends stopped coming around and left the house the last time in tears because of Sue’s behavior. Again, this is not something that was told to me…I was there. I watched it happen. At one point not too many days before Mom died, Sue and I had a screaming match in which I told her, and this is not a direct quote but it is not far off, “We have been here all along and you have no right to come barging in here and run the people who actually care about Mom off”. I later learned that Mom had heard the whole thing. It was typical of the Sue I had known for 20ish years. Selfish, caring about nobody and nothing except herself. Causing pain, misery and heartache wherever she went. Estranging those she shouldn’t. Someone she had influenced to move away from home had by this time reached the very justified point they would not be in the same room with her. I don’t even remember her at Mom’s memorial. I assume she was there. Next time I saw her was at Greg’s memorial. I was inspired to attempt to make peace. I was a better person at that point than I had been when younger and was willing to forgive her and wanted her to get straight This was in no small part because of Greg’s example of not just forgiving people who had wronged them but trying to help others. Well, Sue elected to stay up in Oregon for a few days. A couple of us went over to talk to her and try to make peace and reconciliation. Not long into it, she started the same accusations against Dad and myself and started making them about others. Things went horribly sideways, my wife (at the time) and I left in anger and tears after me having told her I would never be in the same room as her again. And I meant it. Nor was it undeserved. She remained the same evil, lying, manipulative, self centered individual she had ever been. It was so bad that when Dad and I talked about it he said something I would never have believed. He had given up on her. This is a man who pretty much would have found something good to say about Judas. Even he had enough. He thought she was beyond hope and redemption. He would later revise this, but to even hear it once was something I have never forgotten as it was so surprising. I believe the next time I saw her was at Dad and Arlene’s wedding. I kept my distance from her. I would not sit in the same row or be within any appreciable close proximity to her. But she proved too crafty and figured her way into seeing me walking where there was nobody being within a few feet of me and cornered me. She was crying and apologetic…and begging. She did not have enough money to get home. Could I please find some way to loan her some money. To me the real danger was her being in Oregon any longer than necessary. I wanted her gone so I gave her more than I could afford at the time just to ensure she would be gone. Literally every penny I had on me at the time. And I used to carry however much cash I could afford to spend for two weeks. Crying in gratitude (allegedly), she said, “I just don’t want you to think I am pathetic.” There were not many better words she could think of for how I considered her at that point in time. Maybe a better word would have been contempt still at that point. Some combination of those two would have been applicable. Please note; I am not saying that was right. It wasn’t a Godly attitude and I have come to repent of that. But if I am not going to gloss over wrong done, that includes mine. I have thought about it and prayed about it countless times in the intervening years. I do remember at one point somewhere in these years when I was going to most likely Great America and she was living in Pleasanton CA at the time. I was asked to drop something off to her. There were very few things in life I would have been less interested in but because of who was asking I did. She could not walk but a couple blocks at the time and yet she lived in a nice apartment. I did not understand it. Where did the money come from? I have heard rumors but that is all they were to me and I shall not repeat them here. But it did mystify me. As the years went by from time to time she would call Dad and he, being ever the optimist, would say, oft with tears in his eyes, “Sue has come home, she figured it out” and would tell how Sue made some oblique reference to a passage, often something along the lines of “doesn’t it say in Proverbs that a good kid will be good again?” by which she meant “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it”. He was always hopeful, always thinking she was on the right path. Then she would worm her way into visiting his friends with him and steal their medications. Then she would find repentance again allegedly…he was the only person I knew who saw that side of her. Well, in recent years there has been one other. She had lived such a hard, miserable life that although she was just a couple years older than me, she looked 30 years older than me. You could have told me she was in her late 60s when in her 30s and I would have believed you if I didn’t know any better. She hit it off pretty well with Arlene and one of Arlene’s daughters. She became a semi-regular presence at Dad’s place. I made sure to seldom show up. Our encounters were few and rarely pleasant. To her credit, she was starting to show some signs of becoming a better person. The first thing I had seen her do that was not completely selfish since she was like 15 was when Dad and Arlene were away on a trip and she painted a room or two and tried to put some wallpaper up around the top of the kitchen to make it look nicer. It was a genuine attempt to do something nice. And there were certain indications she might still have at least some of her early life brilliance left. I have been told she invented several things. I don’t know what or when so can neither confirm nor deny…but I will say that it would not surprise me. She had been very, very smart. She is one of the very few people I have met in my entire life who were better at school than me. It is a small pool of people. Very small. Arlene’s memorial was one of the last times I saw her. She showed up at the pre-memorial breakfast. Then, in a series of events that mystifies me, she found a way to be part of the dinner that we siblings and our spouses were having. Nobody will admit to having told her about it much less invited her. Because she had expanded who she made false accusations against in one case and an occurrence between her and another sibling it is not my right to divulge, two people absolutely refused to be seated near her nor were children allowed to be seated next to her. She earned every bit of that. Because I was the oldest responsible person, she ended up sitting next to me. And I had to tell her multiple times to stop rubbing my knee. It was repulsive, disgusting, and her refusal to stop ensured she would not be allowed to any other gatherings even if she found out about them. It was bad enough I was paying for all her meals. I didn’t need her of all people creeping on me. Some time in the last couple years she caught…was it pneumonia? Dad wanted to see her so I drove him down to the hospital she was in. I saw her from a distance, laying unconscious in the hospital bed, full of tubes to keep her breathing. It was soon obvious she would not recover consciousness any time soon and there was nothing we could do to communicate with her, although Dad being Dad and the ever-eternal optimist, he may still say she squeezed his hand when he asked her if she had considered her salvation. Maybe. I hope so for her sake. There was really only one good thing we could do. I found one thing where she was growing as a person. Her dog. Later dogs. She really cared about and loved those dogs. In my experience…other people’s experience may vary, I can only speak for myself…those dogs were the first living beings besides herself that she had cared about since she left home. Dad and I spent a fair amount of time trying to get her room secured and the dogs cared for. Because she had separated herself from pretty much everyone nobody could get a hold of anybody who knew anything. We were not successful. Interestingly, even at this late date she was not done causing trouble. After Dad and I got home, the kids were having a family meeting discussing possible routes of getting her cared for. We talked about funding a care home. We talked about hiring a personal care worker. At some point the conversation drifted to if she moved up to Oregon to live at Dads. People who have sacrificed a great deal in order to be able to take care of Dad made it clear if she came they would move. She had sunk so low even recently as to accuse a kid who lived at Dad’s place of improper behavior. She had gone to that well so many times I doubt anyone would believe her…but the risk is too high. Some things you just don’t take chances with. This led to some internal dissension where at least one person was defending her behavior whereas three of us who had been directly victimized by her either in physical attacks or false accusations were pointing out “forgive but still keep yourself safe”. And by her own behavior, repeated, and never apologized for or even admitted fault…she had put herself in a position where I wholeheartedly concurred with the idea that being around her was dangerous. This led to an argument over what actually constituted forgiveness. Fair question. Worth thinking about. I have seen or heard nothing that changes my mind. When someone has for nearly 40 years demonstrated a pattern of false accusation, lies, theft, manipulation, and complete lack of sorrow for their deeds or forgiveness, it behooves one to be careful of their interaction. That was never resolved and we did not happen. We were going to find a way to get her taken care of because regardless of all else, she was still family and still in need. It was a discussion about how to get her cared for, not whether she would be cared for. We also had some pretty extravagant plans in place to make sure that, if they could be found and she was still stuck in the hospital, her dogs would be cared for until she was ready to have them back. I have made no secret of the fact that those were the only things in her sad life that brought her genuine pleasure and that she truly seemed to care about. Regardless, it never came to pass. Despite our asking, it was not told us when she was released from the hospital. Her social worker never returned a single call. Her behavior, rumor has it, had her go through multiple care workers in the last few months of her life top the point I know of nobody who knew who had her in their care. We could not find anyone who knew anything. At some point Dad actually reached a point he just assumed she had died and due to how hard it was to get information we just had not been informed. He came to peace with it. So when we got actual, legitimate news of her passing, it did not have the impact you would think it would. As one person who was closer to her than I ever was said, “She died the way she wanted…alone”. Now, my experience with her is just that. My experience. It is entirely possible others had different interactions. At least one sister has been a staunch supporter of hers for years. People who grew up with her probably see her in a different light. In fact, when I was discussing her with one of the very few people who had any sort of regularity and mentioned how Dad kept having hope for her, she said that yes, there was a change in the way Sue talked, the things she said…that there were signs she may have legitimately been trying to find God. Another person suggested that certain results from the autopsy may suggest other things. Each person has to look at their own interactions with Sue and make their own decision. For me, I have prayed multiple times that God have mercy on her soul. I have looked long and hard at myself and looked at places I need to work on. I have worked on many, I have many more to go. I think it is a common phenomenon when someone dies to look at things and wish to have talked to them more or reacted differently the last time(s) a person saw them, to have regret. I have none of those. I tried, at least for the last 10-20 years, to help her when and where possible without having to have interaction with her. I felt sorry for her on one level but on another level looked at her as someone who consistently, repeatedly made bad choices, had no sorrow over those choices and was living with the results they had earned. When given chances to change the direction of her life she refused intentionally, repeatedly, and often. I did not pull a lot of punches in this. A couple in regards to things told me in confidence or where it might needlessly hurt someone. But towards her and myself? None. I was no angel in our early year relationships. The fighting was inexcusable and wrong, I bear the shame of that behavior and definitely grieve over it. I cannot change it but I can sure repent of it as I have done numerous times and work hard to improve myself so it is never in danger of happening again. I like to think that people who have known me for any length of time have been able to observe changes in my behavior, thought processes, and actions. I made my attempts to make peace with her and when those were rejected I simply kept my distance. But even there I was ready to help her where and when I could, preferably with an intermediary between us. I think Emily was a little surprised, kept waiting for me to have a grief-stricken breakdown. The only people I grieve for are those whom deserved better from her and did not get it. That is their story to tell if they choose, not mine. From where I sit, she made decisions repeatedly that led her to where she ended, did so knowing the outcome, not caring and ending up having lived a sad, lonely, pain-filled life but being unwilling and undesirous of changing anything.