“I wrote this,” my sister Viny whispered to me once when I visited her in a locked down psychiatric facility where she was a patient, as she handed me a thick, leather-bound book, the words “Holy Bible” glistening in gold on its cover.
“Catchy title,” I remember responding, one of my usual flippant answers when my youngest sister was off her meds and crazy came calling.
The baby of our family, two years my junior, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at the age of 24. And so, in a weird deja vu that I wish on no one, a dozen years after having watched my own Papa sign Mamma’s commitment papers, I watched my own hand, as if not belonging to me, sign my own name, taking the lead role this time in locking my younger sister away.
For reasons I still don’t understand, my sister’s repeated going off her meds and descending into madness always seemed to happen just in time for the holidays. More often than not, in January, we would be dealing with her in some facility or just having been released from some facility.
Oddly enough, what I wouldn’t give to have that be the case today. But it stopped on January 17, 2014. Because she stopped, or her heart did. That big heart that always fought for the underdog and loved without judgement and never could be filled with whatever she needed to be at peace, because what she sought could never come from the outside.
I had taken those calls countless times. “Your sister’s fallen out of bed.” “Viny’s been in a fight.” “Viny had to be taken by ambulance to get her meds checked.” It made my life hell. And at the same time, it gave me some bizarre sense of purpose. The last call I took was one I expected to end the same way, with the nurse and I agreeing to some tried and true course of action: upping her meds, bribing with incentives to take her meds, threatening to take away privileges if she didn’t take her meds… Only this last call offered no course of action.
I miss my little sister. More than I ever would have imagined. And I delude myself into hoping that the girl whose dream it was was to be a rock star is now up in heaven jamming with David Bowie.
Screw “rest in peace” – hope you’re “rockin’ it out” Vincenzina – the Vinster – Milana. What a huge hole you have left for those you’ve left behind.
