Sometimes you
just have to write it down right away, like right now. This is not about my son, Andrew, but it relates in a way. Writing it right this minute is risky,
because I am at work, at my desk, facing the holding cells, but I want to remember my thought that are racing around in my head at this moment.
She’s back.
It’s my older sister’s best friend from high school, and back then they called her, "Weasel". I am not sure where that came from, but it was her nickname. My sister's partner-in-crime, so to speak. They pushed the limits of what a kid should experience in
high school, and in many ways, broke down barriers and helped set boundaries
for me. I had a pretty good idea going in to high school what I could
and couldn’t get away with, things I might get “killed” for by
my Dad, and things that he could be reasonable about.
But this is
killing me, seeing her like this at my workplace, the County jail. “Mary” is killing herself, slowly. So slowly its
rather incredible. You don’t realize how much a human being can
take. But she is taking and taking and taking. She is living on the
streets, getting arrested every week and now every few days for being
“Drunk in Public”, a high-crime in our parts. She looks bad, but
oddly, not as bad as one would expect.
When I was 12, I
worshipped her. She was an awesome horsewoman, and had her horse
trained to follow her voice commands. She would say, “Load up,”
and the horse would walk right in to the horse trailer. I had a
rough, green-broke filly that I was trying to train to be a good gymkhana horse, even though I was a fish out of water. She traded me
horses for a few months and spent some time training my horse while I
got to ride her awesome horse, Brandy.
So when I see her
in jail, sleeping off a drunk, it breaks my heart. As I see her come
in time after time, it kills me…slowly. Obviously not literally,
like she is killing herself, but it hurts. I wish there was something
I could do, but at this point she doesn’t recognize me, I don’t
have to interact with her, and its best to keep it that way. When an
inmate discovers they know you, they talk about you to other inmates,
they yell directly at you, they may bring up something hurtful or
embarrassing from your past history with them…and that’s never a
good thing. It would leave me vunerable. She had once posted
something on my sister’s Facebook page about “who does she think
she is?”, insinuating my sister had no business trying to run her
business of healing therapies, trying to project a healthy and happy
lifestyle. No matter how well a person is doing in recovery, this
stuff brings you down a notch, sometimes all the way down.
I saw her on the
street one day when I was out riding my bike. It was at a street
corner about a block down from the Homeless Day Center. I had to stop
for a red light, and she was stopped there, too. We were within arms
reach of one another. I so wanted to say something, but, again, its
not a good idea. I just gave her a smile like I would most anyone.
She commented something to the effect, “Yes, I wait for green
lights, too. Funny, huh, a homeless person waiting for a light to
change.” I said something like that would be the logical thing to
do, then the light did change and I pedaled ahead. Conflicted. But I
keep on going. Sometimes that is all you can do, kind of like my own
sister’s journey. She made the decision to get sober 25 years ago,
and she has been living her life, going through her own struggles,
but she is fighting to stay sober and live the best life she possibly
can. She is a good and happy person. So to see this person left
behind, hurts.
I always come
back to Andrew in my thoughts of these people on the streets. He was
so vunerable. The precarious bond of trust we had could have been
severed at any time, and he would have been out on the streets with
his increasing paranoia, victim of the harshness of that life. I am
ever thankful that he didn’t end up on the streets, homeless. We
took care of him the best we could and kept him safe from that, until
he had enough and ended it. It could have, would have, gotten much
worse. I need to remind myself of that. But it is still depressing.
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