A Visit to See Amy

I visited my sister, Amy, today for the first time in months. I was a bit over-generous with my belated birthday presents for her since the occasion was almost three months ago and I had missed it. Buying a couple extra things helped assuage my guilt, which was forgotten the minute she joyfully ripped the packages open before I even had a chance to get them out of my car.

My sister turned 50 on May 25 of this year. She’s not quite sure, but she thinks she’s about 16, which is the age her mental illness first became apparent. Perhaps I should say that that’s how old she was when we had to drop everything and try to get her some help.

She lives in a group home in Ortonville, Michigan with about 20 adults who all have some kind of mental problem. They seem pretty peaceful, but maybe that’s because they’re heavily medicated. When I was there today, there were several residents sitting around the t.v. watching something insipid featuring a hairy puppet I didn’t recognize. The show had the look of a cheap Sesame Street knock-off.

We went to McDonald’s because she loves it and doesn’t care if she’s taken there or anywhere else. After zipping through a double cheeseburger, fries, and large orange soda, she was ready to leave, but not before asking me if I would get her one of their soft-serve ice cream cones. Of course, I said.

I normally drop her off right after lunch, but this time she was so excited about the jewelry box I had given her that she wanted me to come in while she switched everything from the old one to the new. Even though my father and the lady in charge of the group home had told me a long time ago that Amy has a bad habit of throwing out perfectly good clothing and jewelry, I was still stunned to see how little she had. For years, Dad would get her nice jewelry from one of the best stores in metropolitan Detroit for both her birthday and Christmas. He has stopped doing this now, of course. I should have expected a pretty sparse collection, but still, I was surprised.

All in all, the visit went pretty well except that I still find it disconcerting to catch her looking at me in such a way that I know the scary and evil voices she hears are telling her nasty things about me, probably to kill me. This happened only once yesterday, during lunch, so I guess that’s not too bad. The other disappointment of this particular visit was when I mentioned having had lunch with one of my mother’s first cousins, whom I have seen only a couple times in many years. It had been decades since Amy had seen him. When I mentioned the lunch, she didn’t respond at all.

On the way home, I had the same deflated-balloon feeling I always have when I leave there. I brace myself and don’t really have any expectations on the way there, but on the way home, I can’t help but feel low, so, so low. She was my only sibling. When I was young, I assumed we’d both grow up, get married, have a few kids and that the cousins would have a great time together. I assumed I’d have nieces and nephews that were her children, and I imagined that she’d have a husband who could be a friend to mine. Of course, my parents had their own hopes and expectations, too.

I am grateful for the excellent care my sister receives at her home. I am also grateful that there is enough money to cover this expense. It is nothing less than a tragedy that so many people like my sister are homeless. Still, in spite of these mercies, the devastating loss is sometimes too much to bear. Today was one of those days.