Take Care of the Little Ones

I have much to be grateful for...

My baby sister has turned fifty. In those years she has lived more life than most of us would live two- or ten-fold. That life has not been easy.

My sister was the victim of a psychopath. I have written about my stepfather before, the man who my mother loved but never really knew. That my little sister was able to rise above his influence and his destruction is a power of example to those who are survivors. Survivors struggle with the awfulness of the reality that the very people who are supposed to love and protect you end up taking advantage of the power they have over you. A power they abuse; a power they exploit; a power that should never have been given to them; a power they don’t deserve; a power that takes a lifetime to dampen its fire.

I cannot tell her story. I can only be witness to her struggles to reclaim herself. I can applaud her for every step she took...even if was at times one step forward and three steps back...to live a more healthy life than what she was set up to live. She was the victim of a set up. And she got out of that. She has wrenched from the demon the reins of her life. She has taken her own control. She has taken command, despite living a life that took away her choices and her autonomy. She knows that there is no person on earth that can write another’s personal biography. If they dare to do so, there is something desperately flawed about them. The certainty that she can be in control of her own life, despite the shadows of the demons, is what will – and has made – my sister free. She can – and she is, despite the despotic influences in her past to the contrary – writing her own script for the future. Today, it has all the hallmarks of a bestseller.

I wish I had taken care of my little sister better when she was young and in the clutch of the demon. I wish I had paid more attention. I wish I had paid attention to what was going on, rather than worrying about my own safety. I wish I could have saved her from the demon and from all the years of devastation his influence would wrought. I wish my time would not have been spent only saving myself from him. I can’t. I can only love and celebrate her today.

My mother loved my little sister. Indeed, I would say she loved her best. My mom waited to take her last breath until my little sister was at her side. It was her dying breath that said “I can only leave this world if surrounded by your love”. My little sister gave my mom a safe passage: You can leave this world knowing you did the very best.

My little sister is living a life where what could previously not be conquered is easily vanquished. Never forgotten, but diminished in power such that it no longer has the force to steal the future. She has succeeded in rendering what I might have thought impossible many years ago: she has shown that the demon we lived with was, all along, so fractured and fragile that – like a puff of smoke – was an irrelevant and worthless being. Power to little ones restored. You, demon of a childhood, are irrelevant, fractured, fragile, worthless, and impotent.

I have learned much from my little sister. I have learned that the real power of a person lies within. She has shown me that life can mirror a fairy tale; you can throw water on the wicked witch and she will melt.

And I am grateful. Happy birthday, courageous survivor. Mom took her last breath in the hope that you would be where you are today. Her last breath was, as she no doubt knew, the most important. Little sister, you are living in the promise of that breath. May it always be so...