Grief: An essay on family
I feel grief in my bones. In every limb. Grief leaks out of my eyes and fills my heart with sorrow. If grief could kill I'm sure I'd be gone already. I write this laying in my van with the windows down feeling a cool breeze kiss my exposed skin. I am writing this as I think of my family. It is nothing new for me. I often think about my family and I think of why they are the way they are. I want to shed them, their trauma and my own the way a snake sheds it's skin. I don't want to live with their pain on top of my own anymore. I feel it's impossible for me not too. I was born to feel everything deeply.
I am thinking of my sister. My sister is a drug addict. Her drugs are fentanyl and heroin. Last week I woke up to a text from my father who lives thousands of miles away. Even across the country their tentacles reach across the distance and wrap themselves around my body squeezing tightly. “Your sister was arrested and your nephew is in foster care” I sobbed. I knew this day would come. Either this or the awful news my sister was dead. I only get such a long text from my father when bad news is being said. Otherwise my father is quiet as a mouse. I didn't know what to do with this news. What could I do? I live in a van. I am such a failure that I can't even get custody of my nephew. The next text took my breath away and shook me to my core. “Your sister is pregnant and will give birth any day now” three punches. Could this get any worse? I sobbed anew for this new baby. My heart was shattering and my mind was racing. Was this baby going to be born with disabilities? The fear was to much. I was so stressed I became constipated (TMI?) My body ached for days after. I had to keep asking for updates. No one could tell me much. I wrote a letter to my niece (I learned she gave birth march 22 to a girl) apologizing for our family. Praying to any gods that exist that my sister can get the help she desperately needs to be the mother her kids deserve. To understand my sister is to understand generational trauma:
“Generational trauma is the transference of traumatic experiences or stressors from one generation to the next. One of many types of trauma, it can happen through direct experience, witnessing violence, or living in an environment where violence is a constant threat.”
We grew up in a home with an alcoholic drug addict mother. Our grandmother was an alcoholic, our great grandparents were alcoholics. All of my fathers sisters are alcoholics and drug addicts. Alcohol and drug abuse can be passed from one generation to the the next. Every aunt I have has experienced abuse from men. My sister and her boyfriend abuse each other. It's all she knows. My parents were violent with each other. Violence is normal in our family. Violence is normal in society (movies and tv shows show a lot of violence.) The United States has a gun issue. This is a violent country. It's no wonder so many people become abusers and create victims and generational trauma. The only way this cycle can end is by the entire system gets torn down. Since that's not happening anytime soon the only other way is to break the cycles. How can you tell my sister who has no hope of making it on her own, that drugs aren't the answer? People in poverty have very little hope in their lives and drugs and alcohol can numb them. It's a tragedy. The lifelong effects of growing up in a home with addicts and poverty is a wound that never heals.
I spoke to my sister the other day. We haven't spoken in almost a year. We haven't had a real conversation in years because she was always getting high and cut me out of her life. I didn't know what to expect. The day was a typical sunny arizona day. The wind was blowing and I sat on a bench in the shade. I didn't even know if she would want to talk to me. In 2020 she stole my dad's valuables for drugs and I lashed out at her. She blocked me on all social media and we didn't speak for a year. She texted me out of the blue before I got married and we tentatively patched our relationship. We didn't speak much though, only an occasional text that went nowhere. Now though I needed to know she was OK, the baby was OK. She had been in the hospital for almost a week by then. She answered and i released the tension in my body. I deflated with relief and we spoke for hours. It was like old times. Before our mother died from drugs and before she began her drug abuse. My sister was back. It felt so good to talk to the sister I grew up with. We laughed, we cried. She admitted she didn't want to talk to me at first because she thought I'd be angry. I told her I'm not angry. I'm just sad. I'm sad her life had gone down the same path our mothers did. She was happy I wasn't calling to lecture and we enjoyed our talk. I will remember that call for the rest of my life I think. She told me of the arrest and her labor. The baby was in another hospital getting treated for withdraw but was otherwise healthy. Her son is with a relative who will care for him until she can prove to the court she is a fit mother. She is going to rehab and I am hopeful this will help her. She wants to heal and be a good mother. I know she can do it if she tries.
My sister is not a bad person. People who look down on drug addicts aren't seeing their cry for help. No one wakes up one day and says “you know what? Today is the day I'll become addicted to drugs” it never happens like that. People who do drugs have pain they aren't getting help for. Most of them live in poverty and have traumas. Our mother was abused by men and that led her to drinking which led to drugs. It's always trauma. The states and government never act until its to late. Jail is not the answer. Housing, access to Healthcare and education is. If society was healthy, people would be healthy. Until the government helps its citizens drugs, poverty and abuse will thrive. Drug abuse affects everyone around the person. It creates generational trauma that just keeps cycling.
I don't know how to heal from my own traumas and I try not to take on the weight of theirs. It is so so hard. I'm homeless without any health insurance. I can't even access therapy. I am trying. I can only love my sister and family to the best of my ability. I can't heal them no matter how much I want to. I lost my mother to drugs. I don't want to lose my sister too.