Mindy's Story. My Story.

Guin and Willow,

This is a letter that is meant for you to read when you have a much greater understanding of the world.  I have already answered a lot of questions for you as to why my sister is gone.  You know that she died before you were born.  You know that it was because she was very sick and took too much medicine that made her body stop working.  And as you get older and continue to ask questions, I will continue to answer them.  You will continue to learn the details of this story as you grow, but I wanted to put it down as I remember it for you to have in its entirety.


As with any story told by any one person, there are details that I don't know.  There are things that I remember and things that I don't.  It has taken me eight years to get to a place where I can even write things as I experienced them, and I don't know that I will ever have the energy to put together the complete story.  So for today I will write this story not as Mindy's memoir, but as I experienced it.  I hope it gives you some insight as to how this shaped me.  

Mindy was 14 years old when things started changing for her.  She started having problems at school and found influence in people who helped her begin to self destruct.  She started experimenting with drugs at a very young age and began to rebel against authority, at school and at home.  Always a free spirit, fierce and passionate, Mindy did things the way she wanted and nobody could stand in her way.  She was diagnosed with bipoalr disorder, and while I'm not sure that was the most accurate diagnosis, she definitely had an internal struggle and was self medicating the best that she could.  She ran away from home frequently, being gone for days at a time.  My parents did everything they could think of to help her.  She had been reported as a runaway so many times that the police didn't seem to bother looking for her.  Mindy was in and out of drug rehabilitation programs, only staying long enough for the health insurance to determine that she was no longer in need of help and then beginning the cycle again.

I was in college at the time this was all happening.  I was pretty occupied in the life I was trying to build after graduating high school and I did my best to provide support for my sister while staying distant enough to focus on my future.  At the beginning of summer vacation in 2003, I took Mindy to get a haircut and a new outfit, hoping to help her find some self confidence and spend some quality time with her.  We laughed a lot that day, talked a lot about life.  We talked about our ideas of god and the ways of the world (I don't remember how it came to be, but we came to the realization that god could be a trash truck and we would never know because we are so naive in our human existence... we laughed and laughed at that idea...) We had an incredible day together.  I hugged her goodbye as I dropped her off at home that night, and I was off to do something that I thought was important.  That night she ran away again.  It was the last time I saw my sister.

Over the course of that summer, Dad and I decided we were going to move to Nebraska to go to school and start things off on a different foot.  So at the end of the summer we packed up our things and left Colorado.  I had hoped that Mindy would come home before we left so I could say goodbye.  We got settled in our new home and about a month later I got a random phone call from a number I didn't recognize.  I'm glad I answered, because she had found me.  She called to tell me she was doing well.  She had spent a while in downtown Denver, panhandling and living the life of a runaway with the people she wanted to be around.  She met an older man, in his thirties as she told me.  They left Colorado together and train hopped their way all the way to San Francisco.  She said she was enjoying herself, living life the way she wanted to, feeling absolutely free.  She said she would come visit me in Nebraska for Thanksgiving.  I told her to come home, or at least call our parents.  I don't remember if she ever did.  I will always regret not tracing that phone number to find out where she was.

December came, and I married your dad in a courthouse in Nebraska when I was 20 years old.  Mindy never knew that we got married, she was supposed to be a bridesmaid in our wedding scheduled in Denver in another year, and our decision was a little unplanned because of our financial situation.  I was working at a bank in Nebraska and living the life of a grown up.  Mindy's 15th birthday came and went with no word from her.  Christmas was really hard without her there, I remember the wrapped gifts for her sitting under the tree, waiting there for her hopefully until long after Christmas was over.

Mindy and I always had a great connection, even when we couldn't talk.  That didn't change, even when she was away.  Late in December I had a strange dream about her, seeing her looking horribly skinny, scary, not like herself - she was walking down the stairs toward me.  It made me afraid for her.  I kept a picture of her on my desk at work, and I told one of my coworkers who asked about her that I was increasingly worried.  The end of January crept in, and I had one more vivid, incredibly real dream.  Mindy was sitting on my bed with me, looking at me with her kind brown eyes.  She said simply, "you will never see me again."

On the afternoon of January 30th, I was working at the bank as usual.  I normally kept my cell phone on silent, but for some reason that day I forgot to turn the ringer off.  I got back from lunch in time to hear it ring.  It was my dad.  I don't remember what he said.  But I remember standing in the hallway of my office, dropping my phone, and falling to the floor.  Mindy was dead.

Most of what happened afterward is a blur.  I know I tried to call your dad at work and it took a half hour before I could reach him.  One of my kind coworkers drove me home in my car.  Marna, who we lived with at the time rushed home from work and packed some clothes in a bag for me as I wept and shook uncontrollably on my bedroom floor.  We headed home for Colorado in Marna's car, and I experienced my first panic attack in the dark on the highway.  We arrived home late that evening, and my entire family was sitting in my parent's living room.  Everyone was in shock, none of us knew what we were really doing there or where to go.  It was the most lost I've ever felt in my life.

My family did the best they could to piece together the details of that day.  Mindy had been living with the homeless crowd by the piers in San Francisco, and had been heavily into meth.  She had been to a warehouse party with some of the people she knew and had been on a drug binge.  She was in bad enough shape that some of the people who were with her decided to take her to a hospital.  They dropped her off in the emergency room and didn't look back.  She had to be resuscitated shortly after she arrived, and in that time the doctors were able to talk to her and ask who she was.  She gave them my name.  (I think that will always resonate with me, that even in her last moments, I was the person she thought of.)  Somehow they were able to link my name to hers in a runaway database to find out who she really was and the hospital staff found my parents.  When my parents were en route to the airport to get to San Francisco, they received another call informing them that her heart had stopped and they were unable to resuscitate her.  The autopsy later revealed that the actual cause of death had been an infection on the back of her leg that had gone septic.

Her funeral was the first I'd ever been to.  And it was awkward and wretched, even as funerals go.  I spent a lot of time gathering photos of her for a display at the service, and I took on the role of stronghold for my family.  I was determined to get everyone through this, I was going to be strong.  I chose not to see her body, because I didn't want to remember her that way.  But there's still a piece of me that thinks maybe she didn't really die, maybe she's out there somewhere and it was all a big mistake...  A pastor from my grandparent's church got up and rambled a bunch of crap about Jesus and blah blah blah and talked like he knew her.  If I had been in a functional mindset I would have stood up and yelled at him.  The lady who sang the music messed the songs up so bad, which was kind of a nice distraction actually.  The line of people offering their condolences went on for months, and though people wanted to show their support, all I wanted to do was disappear.

That was the end of Mindy's journey.  And the beginning of mine.

I was determined not to become depressed.  I was strong, I was in control of my life and depression just wasn't going to work for me.  I fought it with all I had.  I didn't need to see a therapist, I refused to be put on anti depressants.  But depression still won.  I spent months in a fog.  I started a new job, took on a full class load at school, and remembered none of it no matter how hard I tried.  I gained fifty pounds.  I started having panic attacks.  It wasn't until one day when your dad was kissing my forehead and I literally couldn't feel it that I realized how disconnected I had become and that things had to change.

Few people know how important your Opa was to me in that time.  I spent most of my days at work emailing him, and he listened.  For months, I don't think either of us got much work done.  He didn't try to fix me, he held the space for me to be as messed up as I could possibly be without feeling sorry for me, and he helped keep me on track and figure out what I was going to do to be better.  The funny thing is, before all of this happened, we didn't really get along well.  Or at all.  It was a blessing I never could have anticipated, and I will be eternally thankful for every email he answered and every word of wisdom he gave me in my darkest time.

It wasn't long before your dad and I decided to move back home to Colorado.  I came home and found yoga as a way to help manage the panic attacks that were still plaguing me even after the depression subsided.  Yoga came to me at the absolute best time, and my practice has saved me.  Without this experience, I don't know that I would have found my way to that foundation that I hold so dear now.

As my life has unfolded since Mindy's death, I have had more dreams about her, always sitting on my bed, just like in the dream I had before she died.  The most vivid ones came before each of you were born.  The last one I had was when I found out about you, Willow.  Mindy didn't talk, she just hugged me, and I haven't seen her since.

As you both grow to become independent little people, I have an honest fear that your teenage years may prove to be like hers.  I know I will have to be incredibly conscious of that, especially to make sure I don't project that on to either of you.  I am reminded of how much her story has shaped even how I parent.  Though you never met her, she is still so much a part of your lives.

In the last year I have really come to terms with the final thing that has been holding me back from feeling free of the sadness of this story.  At first I thought the ultimate goal was to forgive my sister for everything.  But once I did that, I realized I was holding onto a tremendous amount of guilt - maybe I could have done something different to save her, to change how things happened.  I could have tried harder, I could have connected more.... and while it was easier for me to forgive Mindy for everything, it took me a long time to forgive myself.  But I did.  And doing that has been my strongest moment in this journey.


Love,
Mom